Charlie lived in grey
house which stood in a grey street which weaved its way through a grey
town. He wasn’t an unhappy kid – on the contrary, Charlie saw the world
both as beautiful and crazy all at the same time.
But where Charlie was
alone was in the way he looked at the world. He knew that there was more
to life than all this greyness, the question was where to find it.
His grey school room was
taught over by a grey teacher who had once shown something other than
grey from her eyes but as Charlie didn’t have a word for it, he decided
he must have imagined it.
One day Charlie was busy
drawing an elephant, (on a piece of paper, not actually drawing on an
elephant as that would have been stupid) with his tongue hanging out of
his mouth and as he scribbled hard, his pencil shot out of his hand and
under his desk.
When Charlie leaned down
to get his pencil, two strange things happened. One – all the blood
rushed to his head and made him feel really dizzy. Two – the world
seemed to take on something other than grey, he still had no idea what
it was but for the first time Charlie could see the world in colours.
He sat upright just a bit too quickly and nearly made himself sick – but there it was, the world was back to being grey.
Charlie decided to keep
this secret to himself and run all the way home. When he got to his
bedroom, he had one last look out in the hall, in case the family were
nearby then he went into his room and did a handstand against the wall.
Sure enough the world became colourful again, so much nicer than the
grey one.
So every chance he could
get, Charlie would stand on his hands and enjoy the way he looked at
the world. Okay, so no one else looked at the world the way Charlie did,
but he didn’t care, in fact he loved being the only one who knew the
secret.
One day, when he felt
like a walk, Charlie went down to the river and when no one was looking,
he stood on his hands and the world seemed right again. That was until a
large shadow was cast across his face – he hoped it wasn’t the kids
from the other street, he knew they’d never understand but it wasn’t
them. Instead, it was a young girl and what was more surprising was the
fact that her face was the right way up.
Charlie was used to seeing a beautiful world but with people the wrong way round.
You see, the pretty
young girl loved to see the world the same way as Charlie did, she loved
to stand on her hands too and that made Charlie happy.
The two of them could share the beautiful world now. He wasn’t alone.
bobby stevenson 2016
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