His wool was no longer the void for those to lose themselves in-it was like mine. It did not look dyed as my mind promptly dashed to and abruptly stopped from making my mouth assert the observation. No longer a lamb, though still in a habitual routine like those around me. I blinked once, maybe three times, as my eyes focused on the now white sheep in front of me. Patches of the wool were still soiled with black dye as he smiled calmly. The smile that used to make me weary just as much as it would flood my senses with envy. A saying that rang through my mind though if I spoke it, I would surely be condemned to the pits of hell.  

  

        I wish I had his black wool. I want to be in his black wool. I wanted to shave it off and stitch it onto my banal white body.  

  

        I loathe it, I shamefully admit to no one, wrying my neck back the herd I had grown accustomed to since my birth. We were nothing compared to him, even if it wasn’t a sentiment shared by the others. You could try and ignore his existence, gloating like goats about having pristine white wool or four different shaped horns that adorned their heads like a crown.  

  

        Keeping a wolf from the door, in a sense. But it never could compare. Handlers, despite there being a different one every single day to check if we needed to be sheared or sent off to be butchered, would never spare a glance at him. I originally believed it was because no one could touch him, inaccessible and sacred to those who wished to touch the black wool that was void in color and of any dirt or knots that the rest of the flock could only pray to avoid. Miracles are diurnal, only for him. Dormancy was scattered across the days and nights, only for him.  

  

        To experience the impact of misfortune, however? Against all odds, it seemed as if fate had it out for us. Crisp mornings where the entire flock were lined up in front of a handler, subjected to their questioning gaze. Nerves had been drifting among the sweet floral scent with all of us anticipating the task we knew we would have to excel at, less we be reduced into stubby, intricate cuts of moist indulgence, carefully packaged in suffocating plastic wrap. Tasks were mundane, ranging from our vigilance in staring at a chalkboard, our patience in trotting in a straight line behind and in front of our peers and even our honesty. Our honesty in who is the weakest. Who doesn’t have a future worth investing in. And those that didn’t would make a handler’s slim eyes narrow and use their ring finger to gesture for another handler to leash the lamb with a cage--a muzzle, obstructing their panicked and frightened bleats. The flock would try to pay no mind to their resistance as they were imprisoned within the confines of the small barn house that loomed over us all. One by one, each sheep either achieved one of two outcomes: their bleating being ceased due to the muzzle being placed over their maws or being hustled back in the bright verdant blades that concealed the grime and sludge that got stuck between our hooves. Hooves crush the raw earth beneath while it parts away for him above. Some instinctively strayed away from his very presence while some excitedly trotted towards him, their bleats high pitched as if they were talking to a higher figure.  

  

        It never really occurred to me that, as a lamb, a question should have dawdled—pranced in my mind.  

  

        Did he ever want this praise or rather was he tired of it all?  

  

        Did he no longer want to be on a stage, no longer hidden behind heavy, burgundy curtains with golden linings? No longer wanting to bear the mundane, no longer wanting to be smothered in solidarity, no longer wanting to be the muse for others to worship.  

  

        But as a lamb, trying to give him an honest interpretation compared to the rest of us was a losing game all the same. In truth I wished someone had given me a meaning before falling into that inescapable hole of obscurity. A Cassius to his Caesar, it was unnatural to why I let this feeling linger and fester. A small foal attempting to imitate another foal whose wool I wish was stapled onto mine. Whose wool I wished was stitched onto mine. Whose rectangular dark pupils with claret irises had been closed forever, never to be silently admired again by the eyes that stalk him endlessly.  

  

        Never staying the same, never making a difference, being ideally lackluster in a superlative manner. An essence of everything I wasn’t. He always looked drained yet never rested those weary hooves cloaked in shade that blended seamlessly into the night. Not that I particularly cared enough to notice. Not enough more than how the flock never took notice of the lack of an ewe or a ram by his side. Only handlers, as far as the eye could see.  

  

        Then the impossible happened–I had beat him at something. It was minor, so minor that a microscope would not be able to account for my inflated ego that day. A one-point difference between my result and his on an exam pulled me out of clouded thoughts as my gaze travelled up the board that hung on the outside of the white barn. I received speculating glances and even a single, gentle caress from my ewe who came as quickly as she left. Words originating from my fragile ego echoed within the confines of my mind yet remained caged within my maw as I took a glimpse at him. I was expecting maybe a look of frustration, a clenching of a jaw twisting his otherwise calm and collected expression. Yet instead of that, a look of something that I couldn’t quite place at that time. His body grew rigid and he ceased all activity within his body, as if his heart had shriveled up.  

  

        That next spring morning, he had appeared with a jagged scar across his muzzle. The rams saw it as a sign of dominance. The ewes saw it as another reason to worship every patch of grass his hooves limped on. I noticed the limp. The way his gaze was hazy and tired. The manner in which he tried to suppress a flinch when two handlers wearing a ram and ewe mask respectfully came to talk to him. It was a pattern that repeated until the day he disappeared.  

  

        I noticed. Everyone noticed. Tongues stayed tied between muzzles as blood long forgotten had embedded itself in the Earth. His presence always lingered, my memory never being able to amputate that pulsing recollection. Now—I was forced to look at him now. We walked through stale corridors, his voice now holding a sense of self for himself.  

  

        My own body and wool tensed as we escaped outside and laid on the grass that no longer parted for him just as it had never done for me. His voice was amused, hiding a past of misery and dejection.  

  

        “It was never a question of ‘Was I a person beneath?’ It was an acknowledgment of ‘I wasn’t even a person underneath.’”  

  

        I blinked again, but the gesture came with a thought.  

  

        How is he able to smile?  

  

        My heart, once veiled in raging fires, now extinguished with a feeling. In that moment I didn’t want to allow myself to concede to the idea that it was pity. More than that, shame at my ignorance. We became friends. We talked. We shared. We still do. The thought that lingered in my mind, one that would’ve damned my existence to a place lower than hell, changed.  

  

        I hope his wool is like mine. I wish the black spots would fade into oblivion.  

  

        I want to shave my fur off to stitch it onto his. Hiding his black wool.