From Green to Gray

Samantha Buhr

There was nowhere left in the world for him. The one spot of green had finally been destroyed and converted into gray, just like everything else had.

The animal trod it’s heavy hooves on the dead grass, stepping over cigarette butts and crumpled beer cans. An electric fence separated him from the smoke-breathing monsters that spewed black into the air. The air was dense with thick smoke, there was no more blue in the sky. There were no more clean, clear ponds to take baths in. No more luscious grass or trees to snack on. No more animal friends to play around with. There was no more hope, really. The human population had deprived the Earth of it’s natural resources, instead they created man-made structures that skimmed the puke-colored clouds. Was that what they would call a home?

Suddenly, there was movement. The animal’s leathered ears pricked with angst, straining to hear for the sound of a nearby enemy. The animal’s wide eyes twitched about. A human, clad in a gray suit with a long, lined face, walked in robotic movement along the fence. The animal observed, curious and scared, as the strange man continued to step down the cracked concrete path. A human! The animal had never seen one so close before.

He followed a couple paces behind, apprehensive. The human walked, eyes blank, face expressionless, not realizing that with every robotic step he took, the last green that there was on their desolate Earth shriveled and died. The concrete monsters were throwing up black, charred smoke, the air was dense with pollution. The man continued with a blank face as each step he took exterminated another green patch, replacing the green with the gray. The animal was horrified. Did the strange, robotic man not realize what he was doing? The animal wanted to stop the human from taking another step, but what could he do? Against the human, he was nothing.

The animal desperately wanted the human to stop walking. He had never been so close to a human before, he had only heard stories of what they were capable of. Their sorcery was powerful, and very malignant to everything green on their planet.

The animal’s soft fur suddenly stood on end. A different type of smoke filled his nose with an unpleasant, musky smell. He swiveled his long, slim head back and forth to find the source of the unpleasant smell. The human had something in his mouth. The animal tried to peer closer to understand what it was. The end of the stick was lit up, as if on fire, and swirls of smoke were emitting from the human’s mouth. The animal watched the smoke twist and turn, becoming distorted, as it made it’s way up into the air, nearing towards a lone green leaf on a dying tree. The animal’s heart raced faster, he had to protect the green from the gray. He started to sprint towards the malignant smoke, bounding over dead branches and dry, crushed grass. All he wanted to do was to save that green leaf, the last standing green in his dying home. Just as he reached the tree, the smoke touched the leaf. It engulfed the edges, slowly stopping oxygen flow from coursing throughout the leaf’s veins. The leaf started to shrivel up, folding and furling, as if in agony. The green was disappearing. The animal’s golden-brown eyes widened in horror as the leaf started to crumble into ashes from the deadly smoke. It wound around the leaf, through the leaf. Screams of terror filled the animal’s ears. It could hear the leaf dying, being eaten away by the gray. The animal’s front legs gave away. It sank to the ground as the last of the leaf was eaten away by the smoke. It’s pitiful remains floated down towards the cracked, dead ground to join the others who had faced the same horrible fate.

The animal was furious. Who did this robotic man think he was? Did he not see that he was destroying everything the animal had once loved and lived in? He pounded his hooves aggressively, hoping to grab the man’s attention. He wanted the man to feel fear, to experience loss, to witness his whole world succumb to the gray. There was gray everywhere.

The robotic man had stopped, but just in order to put out the fire that was at the end of the smoke monster. His black heel dug into the monster, crushing it, putting an end to the deadly smoke.

Endless gray. As far as the eye could see, mankind had destroyed everything and anything that once thrived under the blazing sun, that once flourished and lived in a world full of color. The animal remembers that horrible day. The day when everything started to loose the life within, started to crumble and die and lose the once so vibrant colors that had brightened every single day. Then, one day, a violent-looking fog rolled over the grass-covered Earth, and now everything and anything had lost those once so vibrant colors and everything was gray.

The animal’s bony legs came to a standstill. He watched the destructive, emotionless robotic man walk towards a concrete monster that was spewing out black, creating more gray in a world already dead.  

His body quivered. It was very cold, there was no more sun. It’s beautiful rays could no more penetrate the black haze. His hoof knocked over a broken wine bottle.

No shelter, no home. No green, no sun, no blue. Just gray, black, and emotionless-faced humans with sticks that light on fire and create malignant smoke that kill off the once-thriving plant life of the animal’s home.

It was the humans that made everything gray. Endless gray. Endless emotionless-faced humans with gray suits and long, lined faces. It was the humans that had once made everything so perfect, so green, turn to gray.