How Color Came Into the World...



        In the Ancient days, before color came into the world, everything was pale and drab with perhaps just the faintest hue of white. Although, white may even be too strong a word, for it might cause you to think of the color of clean white bedsheets or blank movie screens, but, in all truth, there was not even that much color in the world. Everything; rocks, trees, birds, people were just a pale colorless drab.
In this bleak as bleach world things became increasingly dusty as everyone grew thirstier and thirstier, because not only was there no color in the world, there was no water either. Finally the king of the world had decided to do something about the way things were, so, one day, he climbed up Mount Olympus where he ran smack dab into Athena, who said,
        "My, what a pale, drab, colorless person you are!"
        "I know," said the king, "and besides that, I am really thirsty."
        "What you need," the goddess smiled with compassion, "is a long drink of water and a good dose of color."
        "Where can I get those things?" he asked in desperation, "For me and all my people?"
        "Well," Athena said thoughtfully, "right now they are being kept in a box under Zeus's bed. But make sure you grab the one marked 'Rain and Rainbow' because the other one is for Pandora and that is being saved for later."
        "Thank you, thank you," cried the king as he waved a pale, colorless goodbye and ran dryly on his way to where Zeus was sleeping. It was no problem for him to sneak in and escape with the box marked, 'Rain and Rainbow,' but when he took the box to the edge of Olympus and let the rain out upon the Earth, Zeus awoke and was angry,
        "I was going to let you have those things," said Zeus, "but when the time was right."
        "The time is right!" shouted the king, dodging one of Zeus's lightning-bolts and running down the mountain. Zeus kept slinging lightning bolts and the king kept dodging until, finally, one hit the box. The box flew up in the air exploding the rainbow all over the Earth. Colors of every shade and combination flooded into the pale, drab world.
        When the king eventually got back home, everyone was laughing and drinking, dancing and singing. There were flowers and fruit blooming on trees with leaves of every color gleaming against the blue sky. The people themselves were all different colors. The king stopped and looked,
        "So," he said "this is what it is like in color. I would never go back to the way things were, not for all the ambrosia in Olympia." And that, dear friends, is how color came into the world.

Randal Lee Cummings