the exact grey of a screen at 3am.

it's not white. it's not blue either. there's this grey that comes off a screen when the room is dark and the brightness is turned down enough that you can still see but it doesn't hurt. it lands on the wall opposite my desk. i've been staring at it for maybe twenty minutes instead of working on the piece i'm supposed to be finishing.

it's colder than you'd think. almost like a very diluted ink wash, the kind you make by accident when you rinse a brush one too many times and the water turns that pale faintly greenish grey. that's what it is. a grey with a green edge that you only catch if you look at it from the side of your eye. the green is just a whisper. i don't know if it's the screen or the way my eyes adjust.

the surface it lands on is the plaster wall. it's not smooth — there's a tiny bump where the paint dried unevenly and the grey pools in the dip slightly darker. i keep wanting to paint that. just that. the colour and the bump and the 3am feeling that makes it look like the wall is breathing.