This is a story of a young girl, whom afterwards, aged along with the presence of time.

A young girl, whom had to grow up in the contaminated society of filthy souls.

She, alike all the other kids, enjoyed playing with dolls. Her parents bought her many, but she only set her eyes on one. It followed her for the next dozen years in her life, only abandoned after she realized it didn’t do what she thought it did. She thought it would protect her from all the bad in this world.

She was never outgoing. She was always a quiet kid that listened with both her eyes and ears, taking in but never giving out much. She was afraid.

She hid herself from light, for she was always afraid of all the things it made her see. It was the light that made her see the dark she was surrounded by.

Her father came back one day, with his arm on a woman. The woman didn’t smell familiar, she didn’t smell nice. She didn’t smell like mom.

The young girl knew only later, that her father not only broke the rules of marriage, but also her mother’s heart, and her family.

The girl, once again, hid away. She didn’t speak, she merely listened and looked. In her arms, tightly hugged, was her doll. ‘Please don’t let there be bad things.’ Her heart whispered softly, her mind praying to a god she never seemed to be able to bring herself to believe in.

This girl grew up fast, into a sophisticated young lady, with pale skin and lips curved downwards. This girl never saw her dad after he walked away that evening, with his luggage, his warm hugs and his little amount of love he had remaining for his daughter.

Her mother aged twice as fast as the girl grew, for her mother no longer had the energy to go on holidays with the girl once the girl turned seventeen. What was left of the beautiful young lady the girl once knew, was nothing more than wrinkled skin, tired eyes and a soft whisper.

The girl hated it. She hated how the world was never fair enough to her, she hated how she had to continue living when all she wanted was to stay in the past.

But she didn’t want to die. Despite all the ugly truths and angel-masked devils roaming in the society, she wanted to be a survivor. She wanted to continue, she wanted to show everyone that she was better than what she seemed.

But she could never seem to step out of her tiny little box. It was her imaginary home, her safety zone.

To stay in it was to continue life with the fear of it being destroyed, but to leave it was to risk losing the small little things she had left in her pitiful life of misery.

Society never seemed to accept her.

‘You’re not the prettiest,’ Society said.

‘You’re not clever enough.’

‘Your drawings are ugly.’

‘No one loves you.’

Society said everything, and everything the girl took in.

One day, she opened her eyes, to find herself lying on a pillow, with the pillowcase wet. Her cheeks were wet too.

She didn’t understand. What was she doing here? Why was she alive? What was the reason she had to put herself through so much just to continue living?

What was there about living that was so special, special enough to make everyone try so hard just to live, even for another day?

She didn’t know.

But one day, she met a boy. He, unlike her, had the eyes of an angel. He had eyes that smiled even when he was sad.

She was startled, at first. She was taken aback by his happiness, his overflowing trust put into the filthy society. She didn’t get it. How could he live so happily in a world filled with frowns?

She asked him the exact question.

What he replied was something she never understood, even until the day she left.

The society isn’t what it is, but what you choose to see it as. A painting may mean nothing to one’s eyes, but a masterpiece to another’s.

Truth lies in your own eyes, he said.

He put a ring on her delicate finger, exactly three years after the first day they met.

He led her to a world of colors, a beautiful painting of happiness. But in her, laid a painting of grey, dark shadows. She couldn’t get rid of it.

Am I beautiful? She once asked him, when he was sitting comfortably on the couch, with the morning newspaper on his lap and glasses on the bridge of his nose.

My eyes show me the most wonderful piece of art I’ve ever seen, but not everyone has the same pair of eyes, he said.

She never understood what that meant exactly, for she was never one to unfold riddles and puzzling words.

But she took it as a compliment anyhow.

Time, was probably the only flaw in the world of the man she loved.

Time was the only grey, blot of paint in his pretty world of bright paintings, for it brought him pain and agony, sickness and of course, death.

 She was never sure if he was the right one for her. For once in her life, she thought that it was unfair to him, not herself. It was unfair to him, because he didn’t deserve to be stained by her colors of grey. He deserved the best colors, the brightest and the prettiest, even until the end.

She never knew why he picked her, the grey blot, out of all the other colors that filled the world.

It’s love, he said.

But she never trusted love. She never knew how to love a person properly, for she was certain that love was merely a colorful painted box with glass bottles of black paint in it.

She was wrong, for the love he gave her wasn’t in the form of a box.

It came in many ways, the distinct ones, like the way he came back early everyday, holding her in his arms and telling her about his day.

It came also, in small portions, like how he grips her hand a little tighter when the streets are filled with too many people, and how he cleans the boxes filled with memories of her and her mother, from time to time.

The grey blot left a little after her colorful painting did, for she couldn’t bear to live without the thing she never believed in, his love.