Cylence Gray
by She Was.
Cylence Gray* was a precocious child. She often felt a lonely melancholy, though it was years before her vocabulary would be large enough to catch up to her small heart. For part of the year that she was five, her best friend was a little red crab, Bobo. Bobo had big white eyes. Two black pupils delicately perched on plastic stalks. Cylence liked to turn the little red knob on Bobo’s side and watch him scurry sideways across her bedroom floor. One Sunday Bobo stopped scurrying. Cylence was sad, though she had thought to expect this. It didn’t matter much. She loved him. He was her best friend. Cylence didn’t mind that his spindly, mechanical legs had grown tired. She could still hold him. Whisper her secrets. Bobo still liked to listen with his big white eyes. And this mattered.
Cylence’s father was a good man. Misguided at times, but good to Cylence. His little girl. He wanted her to be happy. When he saw a motionless Bobo he decided to fix him. For Cylence. Cylence didn’t want Bobo fixed. Bobo was perfect to Cylence just the way that he was. She watched helplessly as her father held Bobo in his left hand and a screwdriver in his right. She sat as close to him as she could. Without getting in the way. Cylence felt the tears well up in her eyes as her father slowly dismembered her friend. And when Bobo was no more, and her father, scratching his head, considered Bobo’s scattered parts, she begged for him to just put Bobo back together. Cylence’s father tried. He tried his very best. But he couldn’t make Bobo fit. Cylence didn’t let the tears fall. She scooped up her friend and placed him carefully in a candy box under her bed. She thanked her father for trying. She knew he felt bad. That Sunday, she resolved that one day, one day, she would be able to fix broken things.
* Not her real name. Cylence can’t remember her real name anymore. She started thinking of herself as Cylence Gray when the thoughts in her head exploded into colors so bright they kept her awake at night.
Oh look at how she listens
She says nothing of what she thinks
She just goes stumbling through her memories
Staring out on to Grey Street
She thinks, “Hey,
How did I come to this?
I dream myself a thousand times around the world,
But I can’t get out of this place”
~Dave Matthews Band
There’s an emptiness inside her
And she’d do anything to fill it in
But all the colors mix together – to grey
And it breaks her heart
How she wishes it was different
She prays to God most every night
And though she swears it doesn’t listen
There’s still a hope in her it might
She says, “I pray
But they fall on deaf ears,
Am I supposed to take it on myself?
To get out of this place”
There’s loneliness inside her
And she’d do anything to fill it in
And though it’s red blood bleeding from her now
It feels like cold blue ice in her heart
When all the colors mix together – to grey
And it breaks her heart
There’s a stranger speaks outside her door
Says take what you can from your dreams
Make them as real as anything
It’d take the work out of the courage
But she says, “Please
There’s a crazy man that’s creeping outside my door,
I live on the corner of Grey Street and the end of the world”
There’s an emptiness inside her
And she’d do anything to fill it in
And though it’s red blood bleeding from her now
It’s more like cold blue ice in her heart
She feels like kicking out all the windows
And setting fire to this life
She could change everything about her using colors bold and bright
But all the colors mix together – to grey
And it breaks her heart
It breaks her heart
To grey
whoops. i guess i put the lyrics reference a little higher than i wanted. smooth, heather, smooth.
you leave me with no words. this isn’t something new. stop it. now. please.
Reading that made me quite sad. I love the end. Unexpected and beautiful.
Jenny, thank you. I wondered about this piece, whether it translated into anything or was completely irrelevant. Thank you.
Just perfect, a joy to read.
Isabelle, thank you. Very much.
[...] nothing shiny here Posted in telling stories by She Was. on February 21st, 2009 Cylence Gray was 12 years old when she stopped believing in god and started believing in love. Standing alone, [...]
Love it! And you make me think I understand her perfectly.
[...] Cylence Gray was 12 years old when she stopped believing in god and started believing in love. Standing alone, and to the side, slender pale arms wrapped around her black waist, Cylence watched the magpie, head cocked, watching her. Cylence liked that her face was turned to the sky. It meant that she didn’t have to look at the spring wet hole they were slowly lowering him into. [...]