The Color of Darkness

It isn't black.

The color of darkness, that is.

That nameless shade of darker grey that blankets our vision in the absence of light - it isn't nameless at after all. The German have a word for it: eigengrau

'Intrinsic Grey'.That's what it means. That's what it is. Simple as that.

Yet, nowadays, most people do not know the word, do not recognize the darkness as a color. They give the color other titles instead, unfeeling ones meant to offer a degree of explanation, such as 'visual noise' or 'background adaptation' or some other and scientists grasp for some proper explanation for why such a phenomenon exists.

Science is advancement. Something positive, but...

... isn't it nice to think that the color of nothing has a name as well?

Imagine it in a storybook, a word in a description of some person or a feeling.

"His eyes weren't black. It was a softer sort of darkness, the kind that seemed to fade into the shadows when you turn off the lights. Eigengrau - that was the word for it, for the softer, gentler sort of darkness that envelops you before you sleep. His eyes were that very shade.

Maybe that's how he made people feel so at ease."

It isn't bad, once in a while, to unplug everything that glows, draw the curtains, kill the lights, and just stare into that lightless expanse of grey.

Eigengrau

Once in a while

It isn’t bad

To just unplug the glows

Draw the drapes

Kill the lights

And stare into

That dark and endless

Nothingness

That vast expanse of grey