The chameleon

Once upon a time, in a rainforest not so far away, there lived a chameleon. 

His special skill was that he could change colour to match things.

He was a very clever chameleon, and everybody liked him. 

He knew how to fit in. 

When he was with colourful flowers, he made himself colourful. 

When he was hanging upside down in the vines with the leaves, he changed his skin to look like vines and leaves. 

He could change colours to get what he wanted. Disguise himself and catch a big juicy fly.  

Or he changed colours to hide, to blend into the background so lions and tigers didn’t eat him. 

When he was with his friends, the treefrog and the toucan, he changed to match them, because it seemed to make things easier. 

Sometimes there were too many things around and he didn’t know what to match to. It was confusing.

So usually he avoided busy places. But even when he found himself there, he usually found a way. He was a clever chameleon after all. 

But then one day, his friend the toucan asked him - what colour are you really? When we aren’t around? 

And the chameleon went blank. The chameleon was clever, so he didn’t like not knowing the answer. 

“I don’t know what true colour I am,” he said. And began to cry. 

And his friends, who loved the chameleon deeply, tried to comfort him, but this only made him cry more, because whenever they came close he began to change colour again to match them. He couldn’t control it anymore.

‘What is my real colour?’ he cried. 

He went home because he thought he might find the answer there. 

But he just changed into the colour of the bed. 

He thought a bath might make him feel better, but then he just changed to match the bath. 

Every time he moved he kept changing. Even when he didn’t want to. He was tired and confused. 

‘Who am I?’ cried the chameleon

He felt so alone, even though he didn’t want to be with people. What had been his special skill now felt like a bad thing. 

And so crying, he crawled into a cave, where it was dark and quiet, and there was no one else around. 

In the cave everything was black, so it didn’t make any difference if he changed or not.

It made him feel a bit better, even though it also made him feel a bit like he didn’t matter.

‘What is my true colour?’ he cried out into the cave.
And there was no reply. 
All that came back were echoes. 

And so he cried some more. 

But as he cried something happened. 

He couldn’t see anything, and he could only hear the sound of his own sobs bouncing around the cave, but he began to feel himself. 

He could feel he was something. He could sense himself.

And maybe the something didn’t have a colour. But it was important all the same.

And just as he noticed this, he heard an answer to his question too.

But it didn’t come back from the cave, or from any of his friends, or even from his head, it came from inside himself.

At the same exact time the chameleon realised that there was a feeling in his chest, and it was his heart. 

‘Only you know who you are,’ the silent voice said. 

“This is your greatest secret.”

Something stirred inside the chameleon. It was like the cave got brighter. Or maybe it didn’t, but it felt like he could see better.

And so, feeling fresh and shiny and new, he trotted to the mouth of the cave and blinked in the sunlight. 

As he wandered over the rocks he saw his skin had changed to dusty stone colour again. But this time it didn’t matter. 

‘I know my true colour’ he said. And he felt his heart sing back to him. 

A tree frog, one of the chameleon’s friends

Later he saw his friends and they were excited because they had missed him when he was in the cave. They noticed he had a spring in his step. 

‘Did you find your colour?’ they asked him. 

‘I know my true colour now’ he said.
‘What is it?’ they asked. 

‘I cannot tell you,’ he said. 

‘Only I can know.’ 

His friends looked puzzled for a moment, but then they asked ‘does this change anything?’ 

‘Everything’ replied the chameleon.

‘But not how much I love you.’ 

And so they continued to play together. And the chameleon would change colour all the time, but this time, it was fun for him, because he knew deep down what colour he really was. 

His friends noticed something too. 

‘You know, chameleon,’ toucan said.

‘You change colour differently now.’ 

‘You still change colour, but inbetween changing colours, there’s a space’ 

The chameleon looked curious. His eyes whirred.

‘Oh yes?’ he said. 

‘Yes. It’s quite quick and I don’t know if I could describe it. But in the space there is something that is different. Is that your true colour?’ 

The chameleon suddenly looked old and wise. He replied;‘maybe I am ready to share some of my secret now’ 

And the tree frog smiled because now he could feel something that felt important and beautiful but he couldn’t put it into words properly. So instead he looked at him. 

There was so much kindness in his eyes that it spilled out into the rainforest and all the flowers opened and the three of them hugged. And the chameleon turned all the colours of the rainbow. Simply because he was happy and because he could.