THE DAY I MADE THE NIGHT The 5-year-old me was asked to draw a scenery and fill them up with their respective colours. Yellow for sun, blue for sky and river, pink-red and orange for flowers, green for grasses and trees~ this was all I had assembled in my empty paletted brain. I drew the sun with dripping sunshine; letter 'V' flapping its wing and taking the shape of a bird. After putting down all the elements into the drawing sheet from my brain, I opened my crayon box to pour colour into my drawing. Alas! My box had only stored two colours for me: the tattered and broken black and the unused white crayon. While everyone was painting their sky blue, I was painting it black. I was timid enough to snatch a crayon and shy enough to ask others. Slowly and gradually my 'V' shaped birds and dripping sunshine melted with the stroke of black. My teacher was staring at me the way I stare my favourite person delivering a speech. I left the sun uncoloured. While everyone's sun was shining with tinge of yellow and orange, mine was faded with white. When the tears were about to escape from my eyes, my teacher approached me like the slow wave and patted my back. Eyes inhaled the tears. I could sense the Kalopsia in her eyes while she was gazing at my drawing. "Where are the stars?" teacher asked. I was confused, but placed my eye parallel to hers. Stars on paper meant to me a decagonal shaped appreciation awarded with every full marks. She pulled the unused white crayon and dotted the stars in my black sky. "You made the night, how beautiful it is!" she exclaimed. But my dissatisfied eye seeked for yellow, orange, blue and green colour on my drawing sheet like others. I felt, I had already lost my scenery with the black sky. She heard my silent dissatisfaction and rested her lips on my forehead for a while and said, "Once a wise man forgot to say, efforts are the most when things are least and, success only counts the effort and — not the thing you've used." And somewhere, I too smiled like the used white crayon. __________________________________________