The Importance Of Purple

We walked the road together, two peaceful beings unknowing of each other’s true form. She called me Taion, and I called her Six. The island was gone, but the insanity remained.

            “I’m in love,” I repeated again.

            “I told you, she’ll eat your heart.” Six stared at the ground with her alien eyes, calculating.

            “I won’t let her touch it again.” The intensity of my eyes shot fire into the shadows.

            Six and I were not that different. We walked the same path with different roles. My job was to carry souls. Hers was to create them. I was the reaper and she was creation. We didn’t speak of our jobs.

            We walked the decimated city streets, analyzing each other’s presence. We found discarded carcasses and picked away their souls. Nothing was new. Nothing was alive.

            Six nudged a dead boy and stared longer than usual before wrenching his soul from his body. “They’re content to make you do all the work.”

            I stared ahead, losing myself in a sunset that I’d never meet. “I know.”

            “This isn’t the job for you Taion.” Six stumbled as she picked her way through the debris.

“I know.” I could taste the colors that I would never feel. So beautiful. Consuming. My blonde hair blew out behind me like an angel’s halo. I was less than angelic.

“We need to do something about it.”

“I know.”

Six reached into her long, thick coat and pulled out one of the apples I had picked for us. Her teeth ripped into the red shell. It bled clear. She was destruction and I was the calm. We didn’t speak of our jobs.

Six carelessly threw the empty apple core and crouched next to me, gazing at the slowly fading sunset. The blues and reds assaulted my senses and left me paralyzed. In my job, you learn that colors are everything.

Six cocked her head. “You should know better than to talk of love, Taion.”

“I know.” The sun was dying. Those around us were already dead.

“The b***h tried to steal it from you once, you know she’ll do it again.” Six stared at me, sensing a change in my demeanor.

“She won’t get the chance to try again Six, trust me.” My eyes turned cold against the fire of the sun. With its last breath, the wind died, leaving me and Six in the silence of our own destruction.  Six moved first.

“Come on Taion, there’s more souls to get.” She stumbled off into the debris of our hatred to search for more of the dead.

“I know.”

I walked mechanically, searching for those I hadn’t found. Some were ready to die, and their souls pulled away freely. Others struggled, and I had to wait, watching the colors drain from their bodies. In my job, you learn that colors are life.

“Taion, come here.” Six was deep in the debris of a fallen monster of metal and glass. I slowly made my way over, my coat blowing out behind me when there was no wind. I reached her and softly took in Six’s surprise. At her feet lie a gray corpse, a woman of not thirty. Her frozen arms cradled a green bundle with a life of its own. Every now and then, the green twitched.

Six leaned down and moved the blanket slowly with his finger. “Taion, it’s alive.”

“I know Six, I know.” Six asked what we should do with confused and conflicted eyes. Leave it, I responded. I am not compassionate, I am not sympathetic. I am the final end, and I am nothing if not fair.

We left the child and continued our job, though I knew I’d be back to collect the baby eventually. A day later, Six’s hatred rained down on another city, and my apathy and power fueled her. This time, we made sure that we left no survivors.

 

A Note:

I am not evil,

I am not malicious.

I am inevitable,

And simply the end to your story.

 

Three days later, we returned for the child. Six reached down and lifted the tiny soul from the green blankets. “Taion, it’s a boy,” she whispered. Hands that destroyed thousands of men caressed the baby’s cheek like a mother’s soft touch. “I always wanted a baby, Taion.”

“I know.” I lowered my eyes to the baby’s face and took notice of his features.. There was an ocean in his eyes. The vibrant blue colors pulled me in and I was lost. Falling, in a child’s gaze. Flashes of sky invaded my cold mind.  The blues twisted and made me euphoric. Six turned suddenly, and I lost my connection.

“What should we name him?” She rocked the baby and danced in a circle.

“I don’t know Six, you can name him whatever you’d like.” I had attached myself to a human soul before. I would not make the same mistake again.

“I think I’ll name him Mori. Baby Mori.” Six nudged his cheek with her nose and began to wander away. I followed halfheartedly, still thinking of the colors in the baby’s eyes.

The next city that felt Six’s touch held more survivors than ever before. I understood. Love makes it hard to feel hate. I dislike survivors. Sometimes I feel them staring like they know I’m there. Sometimes I get tired of the weeping and screaming. Six took no notice of the leftover bodies. She danced with Mori in the fires of her own destruction, ignoring the corpses surrounding us. I did my best to ignore them too.

“You’re in love, Six.” I cocked my head to watch her spin.

“I know.” Her smile touched stars. Six stopped dancing to notice a woman trapped by another monster. She still had her color. Not for long.

“You shouldn’t be in love.”

“I know.” The woman twitched.

“We shouldn’t be in love.”

“I know.” Six stumbled over to a fragmented tree and placed Mori gently at the base. “Come on, we’ve got a job to do.”

We walked to the heart of the wreckage and began. Six ripped souls from bodies with reckless abandonment, delirious in her happiness. Power leaked from her hands, lighting pars of the rubble on fire. I moved slowly, lifting soft bodies in metallic hands. The screaming surviving bodies knelt over the dead and hindered my movements. I let the leftovers mourn and then lightly took the souls of the dead. I think the survivors could feel them go cold.

Six’s eyes held every color that night. They were beautiful yet terrifying all at once. The souls she took were delirious, traumatized from being ripped up from bodies like insignificant pebbles. In my opinion, delirious souls are the best. They still don’t realize they’re dead. I took my time. I moved slowly over rubble to find them all. Every man, every woman, every child. Eventually even the survivors stopped screaming. They laid there, unfortunate and not-so-dead corpses. In my job, you learn that even the living can look dead. Six found me on the broken roof of metal monster that had fallen in our hatred. There was no sunset tonight, no beauty in death. My eves wandered to her as she approached. Her hands were covered in excess soul matter, like pieces of human flesh from where she pulled too hard. Six didn’t notice. In my eyes, she amazed me.

“Hey Taion, we done yet?” I silently wished the clouds would clear.

“I don’t know Six.” Six bends her knees to hover above the ground and c***s her head to stare at me. My eyes go back to the empty sky.

“Well, we’re up high, can’t you just look over the rubble and see if you see any more souls?” Souls always give off a small glow. If you were blue, I took you to heaven. The red ones got shoved in to hell. But if you were purple, well, the purple ended up like me. Like Six. My eyes fell from the horizon to the rubble. There was no color there, only gray, only death. I have never missed a single soul. No color has ever escaped my recognition.

“No Six, I don’t see any. “

“Good, good.” She reached into her coat and pulled out another small, red object. “Want an apple?” She held her gift out and her eyes changed a soft blue.

“No Six, you can have it, I’m okay.” She smiled, and ate it whole. There was no core to throw away, no trace of red skin or clear blood. And I thought, once a body disintegrates and vanishes from Earth, then how do you know if it ever really existed?

Six extended her legs and rose to stand next to me. Our bodies played the same path, same sounds, just different endings. I already knew that. Her eyes broke from the missing horizon and rested on my face. “Taion, you work too hard.”

“I know Six.” I waited for another statement. It never came. Six turned and began to walk to the edge of the roof. “I’m going to go get Mori. You can come down when you’re ready.” She jumped off the edge of our monster and gracefully landed in a crouch, falling the fifty feet back to earth.  In my job, you learn that gravity has no hold on the dead.

Six was changing. I watched her walk fluidly through the rubble, not tripping, or stumbling. She was becoming me, and I vowed to never let that happen. She would not become imprisoned in this god-forsaken job. Six would not share my fate.

I walked to the edge of the roof and stepped off, closing my eyes to feel the wind on my face. I landed softly in the burning rubble, and made my way back to Six and Mori. She was rocking the baby under her broken tree, smiling as if death never existed. Smiling as if I was never there.

“Six, that baby is blue.” She stopped moving. “He’s blue, Six, he’s blue.”

“I know.” Her eyes never left Mori’s face.

“You know what that means Six.”

“No.”

“You know what that means.”

“I won’t let you take him.” Her eyes turned red and fire encompassed her hands. Mori, though unhurt by the flames, began to cry. Six’s burning eyes never left mine as she pulled Mori closer. We were two beings locked in a struggle that could exist for eternity. I spoke first.

“You know what will happen if you keep him here.”

“That won’t happen to him, he’s mine, I’ll keep him safe.”

“Six, you can’t stop his soul from decaying.” Six’s eyes lost some of their intensity as she glanced down at Mori.

“But Taion, I love  him.”

“I know Six, I know.” In my job, you learn that even love eventually dies.

I left her there with Mori while she said goodbye. I was never one for goodbyes. I had already said too many.

When Six was done, I took Mori and walked towards the remains of the sunset. I would make this trip special, for Six. For Mori. My feet were light upon a ground that only I could walk on. My hands were soft on a soul that only the dead could hold. I reached the end of the path and held Mori up to the purifying white light. The beautiful white light that would never touch my hands. Mori’s face turned, and I caught a glance of deep blue eyes that burned my retinas before he was gone. Six saw it all.

Her hands were burning before I turned. I could feel her anger, rising, consuming, a tsunami of red. I walked over to her frame and placed my hand on her burning skin.

“You know we had to.” I was met with red eyes, burning thoughts. “Let it out Six, let it out.” I had only moved two paces when I heard her guttural scream, her anger pouring fourth in a fire that destroyed everything. The shockwaves from her pulsing body leveled buildings all around us. Her hatred towards life, death, love, and what we  were imprisoned to do spilled fourth and attacked like a vicious animal. Everything died in beautiful chaos. The color was everywhere, filling me up, lighting the sky. It was as if the sun had already risen to burn once more. Waves of blood red anger spilled from Six. It seemed as if  it would never end. When Six finally collapsed to the ground, everything within a hundred miles was dead.

I walked over to Six, her body pulsing and heaving with the effort she had just made. The lives she had just ended. She spoke with a pained voice, never raising her head from the ground. “This must be what the living feel like when we take the souls of their dead.”

“Maybe, Six.” I realized at that moment that I didn’t remember what it was like to be alive.

I turned in a circle to see the wreckage Six had just created. Abundant blue with spots of red for miles. No purple. In all my time of doing my job, Six was the only purple I had ever found. I wanted to keep it that way.

I reach down and rested my hand on Six’s shoulder. “We have to get the souls Six. You’ve created so many…”

“I know.” Six raised from the ground, her eyes a cold grey. “I know.”

We worked in quiet, only listening to the cackle of the still burning flames. Survivors were impossible, non-existent leftovers. We moved quickly, finishing a job in hours that should have taken days. When we finished, the sun was rising. I paused before lifting the last soul and looked at Six.

Spots of blue played around her purple. I saw them and I knew. She was resting against a small piece of rubble, oblivious to her color. I knew what I had to do.

“Hey Six, I think I can see something under this building, can you take this soul for me?” I moved a few steps and stopped to watch.

“Yeah, sure Taion.” She reached into the body and pulled out the last soul, and suddenly, the purple was gone. The light blue glowed around her skin as her color became apparent to her.

“Taion…”

A light began to shine around her and lift her towards the rising sun. Those forgiven by God did not need to be brought by me.

“Wait, Taion, I don’t want to go.” I stood rooted in my spot. “Taion, please, make it stop.”

“Six, you know I can’t.”

“But… but what if I don’t like it up there?”

“You will Six, you will.” If only the dead could cry. “Mori’s up there Six, go find him.”

Resignation and happiness crossed Six’s face. “Mori…” She was near the end.

“Goodbye Six, I won’t forget you.”

“No, Taion, you’ll come too! Soon! You have to!” Her hands were reaching for me. Something she would never again touch.

“Say hi to Mori for me.”

And with that, she was gone. Six was pure now, happy. And I was here, on Earth. I fell to the ground and screamed, pounded my fists, let out my sadness. It was then that I remembered what it felt like to be human.  In my job, you learn that you are always alone.

 

Another Note:

I will never be anything other than Purple.

God will never forgive me for what I have done.