The boy lived in a black and white world
And saw no colour.
The water was white and the fire was black
And nothing was in colour.

Then one day he sat by the water
And an older boy skipped over.
The older boy wasn’t black or white;
Instead he was grey.

‘Come with me,’ the older boy said
And held out his grey hand.
He promised a world of colour.
‘I’ll take you there,’ he offered.

And the younger boy, perplexed,
Grasped the grey boy’s hand.
He didn’t know what colour was
And he had never seen grey.

So together they traveled
Through the passage of time
Into the world of colours,
Where nothing was black or white.

At first the young boy was mesmerized
And he admired the colours
And welcomed the newness
And explored the world.

But over time the colours overwhelmed him
And his head twirled with confusion
And his heart hallowed
And the complexities of the world hardened his soul.

As every shade danced before his eyes,
He felt a yearning for the simplicity,
The shallow contentment, the dull lack of depth.
He longed for the clear contrast.

And the more the colours dazzled him,
The more he found himself missing the old world,
Missing the colourless silence,
Wishing everything could be black and white again.