Purple Realm

Ask a lotta people about their experiences with rough times, and most share the same opinion, say the same thing.
"The nights are the hardest."
Be it loneliness, loss, struggle, whatever the pain, there's something about the soft sheets, silence and silky darkness that brings out the worst in most of us.

Maybe our minds get tired. Small assurances, little errands, the chatter of people walking about their everyday lives... Our brains focus on these throughout those hours of sun, so that when, finally, we retire to a still, black state with nothing but our own selves for company, we're so tired we can no longer block that little voice that taunts us.

Call it whatever the fuck you want, the idea's the same.

I don't understand it.

I find that nights are the best. Most breathing in the atmosphere in this part of our hemisphere, in this country, anyway... They're in the dark, alone as I.
I can concentrate. Think straight. I'm not distracted, confused by the rabble of everyone going about life as normal while I struggle internally. Failure to contemplate just how, how they dare go about their daily routines like nothing's wrong, when everything's fuckin' wrong.

I watch them busy themselves, seemingly important tasks to be undertaken as quickly as their feet, bikes, fancy cars will take them. Faces turned up to the sun. Laughter drifting along the air. Joviality coming off them in damn waves.

How can they live when everything's so wrong?

But, then, how can I sleep after a day filled with cold sweat, quivering and trembling like a newborn lamb? How, with nothing to distract my mind, do I lie there in the dark and fall asleep so easily?

Maybe cause tomorrow's a new day. Who knows what awaits me when I regain consciousness? I mean, I could be the same wreck I was today, right? Possibilities are pretty high for that.
But there's a chance, no matter how small. A chance that maybe, tomorrow will be a little different.
Maybe I'll prepare a meal, and enjoy it, thoroughly. I might get somewhere.
Maybe I'll look out the window at all those people living as normal, and decide I want to join the party. See the light. Live for today. Whatever.
Something may just click in there...
And maybe I'll have a better day.

The death of his foster-parent put Eric on the streets, which, of course, was very scary. And, of course, Eric dealt with this in his ordinary way. Fortunately, an ordinary businessman passed Eric one day when the rain didn't wreck his sleeping blanket and he managed to find edible food, and the businessman recognised the hairy, dishevelled young man as the son of a friend who was very dear to him. The ordinary businessman gave Eric an ordinary job with an ordinary income, and Eric was able to buy his very own ordinary home.

When Eric was twenty four, the ordinary businessman who had taken care of him died suddenly of a lightning bolt to the heart. Being the most senior member of the company by this stage, Eric was given the managerial position, and made head of the office he worked in. So it was on this Monday morning, Eric's first day at his new position in the company:
He woke up and did not accidentally strangle himself on the sheets as he rose.
He ate his cereal without choking on the small bits.
He drove to work without hitting a defenceless squirrel.
He did his job without his computer crashing, and without an employee causing a scene.
He drove home without running out of petrol, cooked his meal without burning it, took a shower without slipping over and hurting himself and went safely to bed.

As time rolled on, the unfortunate events within Eric's life had accumulated, although he himself had nothing to complain about, it would be understandable if the boy suffered in some form...

The day after the bank had made an error, Eric woke as usual, did not find the head of a horse in his bed, did not crash his car on the way to work, did not accidentally hit the fire alarm, upset an employee, have to fire anyone, he did not break his oven when he cooked his dinner, nor did he fall and crack his head while washing, and he slept soundly.

Another day (after the day before when he had to fire five employees,) he did not fall down the stairs, he didn't find bugs in his food, nor did he find out he had a brain tumour, nor suddenly develop Tourette's Syndrome, or pop a tyre, find out he had a long-lost sister who was actually his real mother, eat something he was allergic to or get savaged by a friendly-looking but angry dog, Eric logged onto an ordinary chat room from an ordinary computer and met an extraordinary soul.

In short, Eric fell in love.

A relationship grew through the form of the world wide web, in an orderly and ordinary fashion. He did not have to find out that this woman was actually just being cruel, nor that she was actually a bored teenage girl lying about her age for fun, or anything of the sort. It was just wonderfully... Ordinary.

Time passed, and Eric wished to meet the girl. She wished to meet him too, and so they arranged for him to arrive in her town by train one ordinary Tuesday morning at 10:37. On this day Eric got to the train on time, which did not end up being hijacked by an armed robber, nobody stole his cell phone, spilled boiling hot coffee over him or took his seat. He did not lose his ticket, and he did not arrive late.

The woman did not stand him up, nor was she late, either. As he crossed the platform toward her he was relieved to notice that she wasn't a 50-year-old Scottish trucker named Angus. She did not run away, arms flailing because of his appearance, nor did she pretend she wasn't the girl with whom he'd shared everything over the last few months. She did not suddenly brandish an axe, knife, gun or chainsaw from a hidden place and delve into him with said weapon(s), screaming in furious delight as his blood spattered onto steel and stone.

They made small talk and walked towards her house. Her house didn't turn out to be a crack-den, a brothel or the setting of a cult for which Eric was the month's sacrifice. She cooked him an ordinary meal, which was not spiked with arsenic, razorblades, tiny pieces of metal or cyanide. He did not choke on said food, nor die or embarrass himself with said choking.

Then, of course, after much more talking about ordinary things and emotions, the two made ordinary love. She did not have testes, nor was she as hairy as a dog, she did not smell bad. She did not bite off his penis, accidentally snap it off, nor did she take a chunk out of his neck whilst in the throes of her own ecstasy. She did not try to insert one of her digits into his anus, twist her head around or turn green, she did not vomit, laugh, or yell Nazi phrases during climax.

The two spent the week together doing the ordinary things - going for walks - where rabid geese did not attack them, out to dinner at restaurants - where neither lover ate some bad seafood and swelled up to the size of a manatee. All they did was blissfully, perfectly, wonderfully... Ordinary.

Ordinary farewells were said at the ordinary train station on the Sunday. Eric miraculously survived the transit home, and went straight to his ordinary bed, to have an ordinary sleep. He did not check his e-mail until the following day...

Once there were two ordinary young people. An ordinary girl, and an ordinary boy. Having been together at the same ordinary school for many years, and friends in the ordinary way, the two found themselves feeling an extraordinary emotion for one another at the school dance.

Their ordinary friendship blossomed into an extraordinary love; secretly cultivated, unbeknownst to each other (or, indeed, themselves) over the course of their childhood years, brought to the attention of the two as they slow-danced together for the sake of ordinary friendship. Their silly grins softened into the sickly, unsure smiles of lovelorn fools, their relaxed platonic embrace now tentative, awkward - changed with the epiphanies that struck both ordinary teens at extraordinarily similar timing.

The two lovers courted in an ordinary fashion. Sweaty palms grasped together nervously at drive-in movies quickly made way for heated, hurried trysts at the local make-out point, and eventually, the two teens grew into ordinary adults.

The man proposed to his lifelong sweetheart in the ordinary way - taking her to the since-abandoned drive-in where they had their first awkward teen date, he revealed to her a small marquee laid out with a candlelit dinner for two, bent on one knee in front of her as is ordinary custom, and proffered the ordinary type of engagement ring. To which the woman, of course, said, "I do."
And, of course, tears of happiness were shed and shared... in the ordinary fashion.

Their wedding ended, the ordinary newlyweds retreated to their new home, locked the doors, and spent the weekend in marital delights. As is ordinary for newly-married lovers.

The results of their weekend bore them a son. He was born in the ordinary way, and his loving parents christened him with the ordinary name of Eric.

But the Eric was far from ordinary.

Once home from the hospital to their ordinary house, the ordinary parents placed their son in an ordinary crib. Eric did not like the crib. It was big, wooden and imposing. The crib was threatening. But Eric did not cry - he did not make a sound. The newborn simply thought to himself: "At least it's not that cramped red place I was before," and went soundly to sleep.

The family lived a somewhat ordinary life together until Eric's second birthday.

The parents had planned Eric's birthday in the ordinary manner, nursery rhymes were played and other small children from the neighbourhood attended, bringing toys, laughter and precociousness in large quantities. Eric's mother had baked a big sponge cake with blue icing in the motif of a train, which Eric's father had walked, smiling, into the kitchen of the ordinary house to fetch, to proffer to his son.

Unfortunately, the father's mission for cake did not go ordinarily.

All mouths hushed and eyes widened in anticipation of candlelight, wishes and sugared delights as Eric's father walked, his ward of cake in arms outstretched, into the lounge room of the ordinary house.
The smile on the face of the father suddenly sagged into one of muscle relapse as the stroke hit him as hard as the block of flour, eggs and sugar smashed to the floor. Eyes were now widened in horror, screams pierced through the once-happy silence, for as the candles extinguished deep into the fluffy clouds of the mother's culinary creation, the father's life was extinguished, hopefully sent into the clouds of heaven.

Eric said nothing. He remained still, a small smile etched in to his chubby face. Eric was not sad. He was glad that his father would never again hit his thumb with the hammer. He would not again have to reprimand Eric for playing with the funny bottle that lives in the bathroom and rattles amusingly, nor would he come home at night so tired that he's the colour of a tomato and very, very cross. He would not have to pick up the telephone when he was busy, nor spill the hot liquid on the crackly paper which leaves black marks on your hands. His father was free from all of the things like these, and this is why Eric smiled. Later, relatives would pity the young boy, and whisper sadly, "he's too young to understand, poor thing..." even though Eric understood perfectly...

I dreamt about it again. By that stage, it must have been at least a dozen times. Every one identical down to the last detail.

I didn't want to tell them. I knew how they'd react, but how long could I ignore the dreams? They were visions - I knew what I was looking for, and where to go. I can't explain it - I just... Did.

Enlightening them both would be hard. Perhaps impossible. I had to share it, but I had to pick the right time.

My father was out somewhere, talking with traders. He says that traders don't live anywhere, they just go from place to place. He swaps those weird pills my mother made for their food and tools.

My mother? Making weird pills. I don't know what they are, but she collects things from the area nearby and puts them all together in a pot and cooks them. The mixture looks sticky. I watch her as she rolls a tiny glob of it into small ball, then flattens it slightly.

Rolls...

Flattens.

Rolls...

Flattens.

I had asked her why we live out here in the sand. Why we're alone. Why I'm not allowed to go farther than the dune a few steps from our hut.

She doesn't like to talk about it, and dad, dad just gets all quiet and angry. I know that I wasn't born here. I think that we had to leave our old home and now it is too dangerous to find it again.

But I had to tell them.
When we sat together to eat that night, I swallowed my fear and approached the subject.

While my mother wept, my father yelled. He was not going to entertain childish fantasy, he said. I was not to ever, ever, leave the homestead, he said.

I went to bed early at the order of my father, but of course I could not sleep...

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