Greylines

 

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Introduction

At first no one thought anything of it. Children has always drawn trees, thats what they do they look at the world and they copy it down onto paper, if they see trees they draw trees. When they get a bit older they learn how to make letters explain what they mean instead. The problem was though, that the children has ceased to use colour.

 It was a kindergarten teacher who first realised it, she was only 23 herself fresh out of university very idealistic and very distracted by the boy who had most recently stolen her heart. It was only when she was restocking the crayons that she noticed it was only the grey ones that needed replacing that she realised anything was wrong. She looked around the room, a normal kindergarten area with the children's stories hanging everywhere and notices for the first time that every single picture was the same, not just a tree, but the same tree, huge solitary and very very dark. 

She rang another teacher and then another and another, they all discovered the same thing. She asked the children, those sweet little innocent faces looked up at her with complete incomprehension, yes its a tree we always draw trees what of it? Finally the press got wind of it and the trees started appearing in every publication national and international, the whole world started to see the tree. It became a sign of unity, a sign that everyone had the ability to think the same way, that out of the mouths of babes there could come a simple universal beauty. 

Then the children began to never finish their drawings, they stopped a branch or two short, always the same number on the same day in every child's picture all over the world - people were keenly counting by this time - until finally the tree was a mere line on the page and then there was nothing. Children would take their grey crayons and texts, their pencils and charcoal draw a complete tree and then slowly but surely obliterate it, some used rubbers others simply kept colouring until only grey remained. the pages of the world were blank or grey. The children smiling innocently all the while.

 

The world was in panic, what did it mean? How could this happen? Who was controlling it. The promise of unity fell into a state of utter despair, the children had stopped copying the world onto paper. It was an old Danish psychologist who finally understood, the children had stopped dreaming. These innocent little minds so in touch with the world around them watched, listened and understood, the tree was the last pure thing, and the trees were going disappearing. What good was a world without trees? What else could they copy down? 

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