When Life Turned Purple (17 page)

He looked at all the stuff he’d collected in the basket. “Um,” he said.

“Just take it,” said Russ.

The guy’s eyes widened again.

“Just take it,” Russ said gruffly. “But DON’T tell anyone you got it for free. You got that?”

He stared at Russ and blinked.

“Here,” said Russ. “We’ll help you bag it.”

The organized his “purchases” into several plastic bags and with a firm clap on his shoulder and one reassuring nod, Russ sent him shuffling out the door into the violet night.

“Let’s wrap things up here,” Russ said, “and close up. We’re already late as is.”

“I already closed everything up here while you were working things out with him,” said Lia.

Russ’s face lit up. “Oh, yeah? That’s Daddy’s good girl. Well, let’s lock up and hope we don’t run into any zombies on the road.”

Russ held his gun in his hand as they went out the store, automatically glancing up at the sky with the purple sparkly things. He locked the metal bars across the door. Then Russ checked under and inside the car before letting Lia in through the driver’s seat. As she scooted herself over to the passenger side, he slid in too.

The streets were emptier now and it was easier for Russ to keep an eye on drivers and pedestrians.

They took the usual precautions getting out of the car and getting up to their apartment.

And there was the usual relief when the door was safely locked behind them.

Lia’s phone rang and Russ suddenly felt like he was going to jump out of his skin.

As Lia answered, she went into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

Russ kicked at the carpeting and kneed the sofa, cussing it all to hell.

What kind of Doomsday news would the phone bring this time?

When Lia finally came out, she looked sober.

But as she opened her mouth to speak, Russ held up his palm and said, “Don’t tell me. I don’t even want to know.”

Lia shut her mouth and contemplated him.

“How long is this gonna go on?” he said. “Shutting everything down by nightfall like it’s some kind of zombie-imposed curfew? Driving home like Mad Max is just around the corner? Wondering about crazies, suicides, and what’s going to happen and how are things going to get worse?” He glared at her. “And when’s it all going to end? There’s—there’s no end in sight—is there? Is there!”

He punched the wall and Lia jumped, but she didn’t step back—which calmed him for some reason.

“Russ,” she said quietly, “I think I know how to deal with all this. Come here.”

He thrust out his first finger at her. “
No
. You stop trying to freakin’ mess with my—my—whatever you call them.”

“Meridians.”

“Yeah,” he growled. “Just knock it off.”

“Russ, we need to talk about this. It’s more than just pressing acupressure points and tracing meridians. It’s much more than that.” She paused. “There’s a message in all this.”

“Oh, a
message
?” he said, raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes in an exaggerated manner. “What are you doing, channeling these things?”

“No, that’s not it. It’s not anything like that—it’s just they’re like a sign from God—”

“Oh, for—what the hell does that mean? What are they—the Eleventh Plague?”

“In a sense—yes.”

He snorted.

“And the Egyptians didn’t want to see the message either. They wanted to keep on going with what they were doing. When the plagues came, of course, they panicked. But between the plagues? They didn’t do any soul-searching, they didn’t take measure of themselves or their actions, they didn’t examine their behaviors and attitudes....”

Russ rubbed his hands all over his face.

Lia gave a gentle sigh. “Russ. Come here.”

“No. I told you—”

“Russ, you could hurt me.”

His hand dropped from his face and he spun around to look at her.

Deep violet and liquidy, a hint of a smile graced her eyes.

“I would never hurt you, baby. I couldn’t.”

The look in her eyes deepened and she said, “I know. But still. Come here, okay?”

So he did.

She did all the meridian-tracing and acupressure stuff that she said she’d learned from the book.

“Is that why you gave away your book?” Russ asked. “Even though it’s helped you so much, is that why you gave it away? Because you memorized everything already?”

She was doing what she called “sedating the large intestine,” which meant that she was gently pressing two fingers on the side of his first finger’s knuckle and holding the side of his foot.

“Um, kind of,” she said. “Mostly, I felt that he needed it more than me.”

“Did you do it to make yourself
feel
good or to actually
be
good?” he teased her.

But she didn’t smile back. Instead, she cocked her head to one side and said, “Both, I think. This time, I think it was a bit of both.”

“So, you’re evolving.”

She looked at him. “Yeah,” she said, nodding slowly. “I’m trying to, anyway.” She paused. “But it’s very deceptive. You have to be brutally honest with yourself to be able to tell the difference—and to keep on telling the difference each time, to keep doing yet another self-evaluation and then when it’s crunch time, to make yourself do the right thing
with
the right motivation in mind.” She withdrew her hand from his foot and held her fingers against either side of his wrist. “You know, people talk about meditation as mental discipline, but I really think that this—constantly keeping tabs on your inner motivations and pushing yourself to actually
be
good instead of just
feeling
good—is the real mental discipline. You can’t just sit in an ashram or a quiet room to do it. The only way to really do it is in the crux of the action, in the flight-or-fight moment.”

“No chance to practice?”

“Oh, there is. It starts with the little day-to-day things. Do you stop when you see that car broken down on the road? I mean, maybe not if you’re a woman and the driver is a man—I don’t mean sacrificing your safety when it could all be a trick—but you could stop a few paces away and crack open your window. Offer them some bottled water, if you have. Offer to make a call if their phone is dead. It’s letting the lady with the screaming baby ahead of you in line at the supermarket so that she can get home faster—rather than rolling your eyes and gritting your teeth and throwing her exasperated glances and making sure
you
get out of there fast—because who cares about that tired and hungry baby, right? It’s
your
comfort that’s important, and not that of an innocent baby. I’m being sarcastic, of course. But actually
being
good—when the rest of the world just wants to
feel
good—starts with these smaller moments.”

Russ nodded.

Lia swept a lank of hair behind her ear and leaned forward, her eyes wide with intensity. “You know, Irena Sendler? That Polish lady who saved all those Jewish children in the Holocaust?”

“The one they made a movie about?”

“Right,” said Lia. “She didn’t just wake up one day and start risking her life to save Jews during Nazi occupation and later remain silent under torture. She was always doing kindnesses for people. Then she upped her game in university. They segregated the Jewish students, so Irena made a public protest, getting herself suspended. When the Nazis took over, she organized her colleagues to create false documents to save Jewish families. When she first started, it wasn’t as high-risk as it became later. She started with small stuff. And then she just kept on going.”

“Hm,” said Russ, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the soft back of the sofa.

“Why did you give him the stuff for free?” Lia asked. The abrupt change of subject made him raise his head to look at her.

“What, the survival gear? I don’t know. I just felt like a total toad taking money off a guy who’s not going to make it. I mean, it’s bad enough that he’s alone and helpless. Do I have to make him into a sucker too?”

Lia nodded. She stopped pressing the sides of his wrists and just held his hand between two of hers as she listened.

“It’s like if you have a guy dying of a painful illness, and you hand him a bottle of aspirin and say, ‘Buy this! It’ll keep you alive!’ It’s bad enough that you’re giving him something that maybe—and only maybe—will ease his pain, but it sure won’t help him live a second longer, and you’re gonna make him
pay
for that? No freakin’ way.”

“So, were you being good or just trying to feel good?”

He gave an impatient sigh and waved his free hand at her. “I don’t know. And no offense, baby, but I guess I don’t much care. I just do what I think is right. And I’ve gotten along totally fine doing things that way.”

“And what about Emma?” Lia’s words dropped like boulders into a silent valley.

Russ froze. Then he sat up, glaring at Lia. But she gazed at him back with eyes full of compassion. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. You got me. Okay? Yeah, I just wanted to feel good. A baby would’ve complicated my life and I didn’t want that, didn’t feel ready for it. So I dumped the baby. Then when my girl started freaking out—PTSD?—then I just dumped her too. And if she hadn’t ‘dumped’ herself, then I would’ve just been able to put everything behind me.”

“And keep on feeling good.”

“Yeah, basically.”

Lia nodded again, then she said, “You know, they found something interesting in that cosmonaut’s DNA.”

Relieved at the sudden shift off squirm-inducing issues, Russ said, “Oh, yeah? Tell me about it.”

“Yeah. He had two A-to-G mutations.”

Russ frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Mutations aren’t always bad,” said Lia, pointing to her purple eyes. “The double-G mutation is what scientists call the ‘empathy’ gene. These people tend to be more empathetic and more compassionate.” She paused, then said, “None of the others aboard the ISS had that mutation in their DNA.”

Russ chewed his lower lip as he pondered this.

“Also, you know that by the time a scientist is sent into space, they’ve undergone tons of testing? Including brain scans?”

Nope, he sure hadn’t known that.

“Well, this cosmonaut had—or I suppose still has—a particularly small amygdala. Yet his right supramarginal gyrus was larger than normal.”

Russ arched an eyebrow at her. “Whatever rocks your boat, baby.”

“The amygdala is colloquially called the reptilian part of the brain. When we give in to our addictions and bad habits, we strengthen it—it gets larger. Self-discipline and positive habits shrink it. Yet in people who are particularly compassionate and empathetic, the part of the brain known the right supramarginal gyrus is particularly active.”

“Ah,” he said.

“That cosmonaut was known to be particularly active in contributions of both money and time to Russian orphanages.”

“So should we send a check to Miss Hannigan? Will that save us?”

Lia gave him a wry smile. “It’s not as much of a joke as you think.” She turned to pick up the remote and turned on the screen to YouTube. A colored banner across the top of YouTube’s page—similar to that which ran during the revolution in Iran and the royal wedding in England—appeared with the words:
STAY CALM and learn how YOU can be saved—make an appointment for your personal brain scan NOW at this convenient number….

Lia leaned back against the couch and snuggled up to him while her head remained up with her eyes alert.

“They crowded down into Southern India today,” she said and pressed play. “This is from one of the remaining satellites. When they realized what was going on, they were able to access this satellites program and film close-ups of the event.”

“How’d it get on to YouTube?” Russ said, straightening up.

“The way these things always happen, I guess,” said Lia. “Someone with access felt that other people should also have access.”

She pressed “Play” and muted the sound.

Russ watched with wide eyes and his mouth partly open. He saw the purple things—still beautiful and sparkling—grouped over a village. Through their violet translucence, Russ saw how people raced with flailing arms and legs to get away, darting into nearby huts. Others fainted on the spot. Yet the things seemed to stretch and morph and squeeze like galactic wads of elastic putty.

And people disappeared.

Russ leaned closer to the screen.

They just disappeared?

He didn’t see any blood or corpses. Well, not yet, anyway.

When the things finally withdrew and started rising again, things seemed quiet on the ground.

But maybe he simply wasn’t able to see clearly through the sparkling violet bubbles?

The camera moved to scan them and Russ thought he saw a dark human figure in one or two of them. The ones that kept rising and coming closer to the satellite were empty.