Stephon's Short Stories

4: "Gray"

Have you ever just had moments when you'd sit and think, "What if someone were to just hit me with a truck right now?" Sometimes you'd never even want to experience the pain. When you use the black and white filter on photos, there is also a third color there. Gray. The world cuts itself up into two different colors. Black. White. But who forgot about gray.? We can include gray in a lot of scenarios. For instance, not wanting to do homework would be black, and wanting to do homework would be white, and gray would be "Not wanting to do the homework but doing it anyways because..you wouldn't want to fail." In another scenario, black would be "I'm suicidal and I want to die." White would be, "I am not suicidal and I want to live." The gray may consist of "I have felt the urge to harm or end my life but I won't because I have things to live up to/for" or "I have hurt myself but I know not to kill myself because I don't want to die."

There are numerous arrays of the color "gray" just as there are numerous ways of being depressed and suicidal, and sometimes mixtures of both. Everyone doesn't have to have a want to die in order to be suicidal. You can see people walking around joking about them wanting to die and some people aren't joking, some people like the thought and only the thought, some people like to laugh to avoid actually doing it-dying. People can not just walk around forgetting about our amazing color, gray. Have you ever seen the value scale? Gray is always the middle. 

Being in the gray isn't bad. Being in the gray isn't good. It's..neutral. Sometimes you wake up, ready to start off your day with an amazing smile on your face. Sometimes you wake up to the thought of blood slowly rushing through a giant hole in your head. Sometimes you wake up confused. But it also isn't about how you wake up in the morning or how you conduct each of your days. It's also a matter of if you believe that there are still black and white. Because those colors are just as important as your wonderful color. Gray. The color that conflicts your life just as well as black and white could. That color that reminds you that you aren't the only one who feels this..this suicidal thoughtful depression. You're not crazy. People who are depressed, people who aren't depressed, people who just don't know, people who are confused..we all are normal. There will forever be black, white and gray. There isn't a way around it. 

It's only if you are aware.

If

You

Know

How

To

Control

It.

-The world comes in black and white. (Gray)

~Stephon M. Ross