The grass was green enough, and the sheep was quite black. They called him the black sheep; he did not care, and he was not ashamed of being different. As long as he was not hungry, he owed no one anything; he belonged to the clever-but-unwilling-to-work crowd. In other words, he did not graze enough for the shepherd’s liking. All that was expected of him was simply to be—to exist, and nothing beyond that. But there were things beyond being. There was the unavoidable madness of being black, or perhaps a divine nudge.
We do not know whether it was because of necessity or because he had grown too comfortable, but the black sheep began philosophizing: “Is this life grass? What is the meaning of meaning?” What was troubling this black sheep? “Your job is difficult too, brother,” said an ordinary sheep—especially when you have been separated from the flock and from the ordinary by pitch-black wool, and on top of that, there is philosophy involved. The black sheep could no longer graze without questioning the grass. And yet, within the common denominator of being a sheep, within the circle of sheephood, his marginality remained; he still ruminated, but now in his own sentences.
He investigated, he questioned: “What can we know?” he asked. “What is possible? Who, with whom, when; name, city, where?” And so on and so forth, and life passed with philosophy. Old age had given him a strange, proud air. Now it was time to make the great philosophy of the little head heard.
When the time for slaughter came, he looked around him and said, “Life… the meanings within us…” He could not finish his sentence. They said afterward that words were meaningless, and that the only truth was to be temporary.
At first, no one supported him, but his death proved useful to someone. The gray sheep wrote songs in his name. Being gray became something to praise, in opposition to black and white. And so, this is a poem written after him:
There is prey, there is a hunter, there are guns in this world;
being shot from behind, lonelinesses...
There is either fear or love, always absences;
this desire, that longing, always deficiencies.
What you think is yours is actually made of what is lacking;
your soul is not yours, nor was your name given by you,
not even your desires were determined by you.
What do you have to lose?
In this vast realm, the world is not even a point;
neither does the world belong to you,
nor does the world care about you.
Forgive me, but you are under the delusion that you matter;
life is ordinary, and you are ordinary;
with your ordinary desires,
what extraordinary thing could you possibly lose
besides the extraordinary act of not wanting?
Even the best among us died,
immediately after the worst among us.
It has been a long time since the poet of the most beautiful poem
left behind that beauty.
The greatest love existed in one of the ancient languages;
even the language itself has been forgotten.
The greatest warriors have become cartoons now.
No one remains in the end;
there is nothing left to lose...
What else will you do, if not become a hero?
