When Life Turned Purple (25 page)

Lia, who’d pushed herself off him just in time, stared at him with tears pouring down her face.

The throbbing increased, while the purple color and sparkle intensified.

Lia rose to stand next to Russ, gently slipping her arms around his arm, and pressing her cheek against his shoulder.

Still panting, Russ reached his arm across his chest and covered one of her hands with his own.

Now Russ’s ears throbbed, but they didn’t hurt. He looked down at Lia, who still had tears on her face, but she didn’t seem to be in any pain, either.

Russ knew he should run. He should run into the safe room. Looking at Lia, he saw that she didn’t feel the panic he felt. Somehow, Russ knew for sure now that Lia would be fine. The pods would absorb her, like they did with the Russian cosmonaut and the Indian midwife.

Deep down, Lia must feel she would be fine, Russ realized. That’s why she only wept silently, without seeming to be aware of her own tears.

Gritting his teeth, Russ untangled Lia from his arm and held her upper arms, his knuckles aching with the strain to handle her gently as his terror threatened to consume him.

She looked up at him quizzically, her brow furrowed and her mouth open in a little “ooh.”

Shaking with the effort of restraint, Russ lowered her to sit on the couch.

Neither spoke; the throbbing was too loud.

Then Russ mouthed the words:
I love you, baby
.

And in one movement, he released his grip on her and ran to the safe room, locking himself in.

Yet even amid the increasing pulses, Russ could hear Lia’s screams and the pounding of her fists on the door of the safe room.

But he knew she didn’t want to come in.

She wanted him to come out.

But Russ feared one thing even more than he feared whatever the pods had in store for him.

“Baby!” he shouted as loud as he could. “I don’t want you to get caught up in my friggin’ fate!”

Could she even hear him with the increasing throbbing and the thick metal door?

“You’ll be okay!” he continued to shout, panic tearing a ragged edge into his voice. “You know you’ll be okay! It’s me that’s the problem! I can’t let you end up with me, baby!”

Russ knew that if he came out, she would hold onto him with all her might. And that could prevent the pods from absorbing her. Instead, she could get pushed—or evaporated—with him.

And Russ couldn’t let that happen.

Lia’s fists made muffled reverberations against the door.

Russ hoped that the pods would take her before she would hurt herself or the baby.

“I can’t, baby, I can’t!” he screamed. Without thinking, he grabbed his rifle and slung it by its strap over his shoulder.

Then the door flung open, its locks and bolts ripping away like cardboard.

The pods.

Lia ducked the door, then flung herself at Russ and locked her arms around him.

Russ grabbed her by her shoulders, wrestling her out of the safe room, intending to push her away and try to hide in the safe room again—this time from her—blocking her entry with the large packages of bottled water.

But she wouldn’t let him go.

Russ looked over his shoulder and saw the safe room filling up with pulsing sparkling purple.

His head whipped back around and he realized they were already here.

Everything around Russ and Lia was now pulsing, sparkling, and purple. It was like being in a large violet heart atrium.

Russ released Lia’s shoulders and wrapped his arms around her as they stared around at the bubble mass. Then Lia looked up at Russ, her ivory skin lavender in the light of the pods and her eyes purpler than ever.

Then once again, Russ placed his hands on Lia’s shoulders to push her away.

But Lia bent her face into Russ’s chest, hugging him even tighter, and locked her fingers together behind him.

“I’m taking you with me,” she whispered.

But somehow, he still heard her.

“No!” he said. “We don’t know if they work that way! You might just get pushed to wherever I’m pushed—or even worse!”

She hugged him tighter and he could hardly breathe.

“No!” she sobbed. “I want this baby with you together—wherever we end up!”

“But we might
not
—” Russ shouted.

The violet mass pulsed around them, closing in.

Russ grit his teeth, grabbed Lia’s upper arms, and pushed.

“NO!” she cried. He felt the tension in her arms as she tried to hold on to him.

“I’m not doing this again!” he bellowed. “I’m not sacrificing anyone else for myself! Let go, Lia! Let go, dammit—let
go
!”

She threw her head back from the pain of him prying her fingers apart behind him, a wild cry tearing through her gaping mouth, her face flooded with tears.

Dammit all, he didn’t want to hurt her!

Suddenly, he managed to push her down, but she still held him in the circle of her arms, which had slid down to his calves. There, Russ managed to wrench himself out of her grasp. Then before Lia could move again, he grabbed her wrists together with one hand and picked her up around the knees with the other.

Her body convulsed with sobs and she kept screaming, “NOOOOOO!”

But Russ steeled himself and went running those last few paces toward the pulsing mass of pod, Lia’s screams shredding his eardrums.

At the last moment, he crashed to his knees, intending to push Lia on the ground through the purple mass so she wouldn’t fall and hurt the baby.

In one movement, he released her wrists, throwing them up so she’d have one moment less to grab back onto him and shoved her by the knees, yanking his hands back just before they would touch the pod.

It sucked her in.

Lia was in!

Despite everything, a laugh burst from his throat as Russ stared at Lia enclosed within that throbbing violet mass.

He’d done it—she was in!

Lia sat there for a moment, staring at him through the pulsing glittering wall.

Then she wobbled to her feet and placed her hands against the side of the throbbing translucent wall, staring at him.

Suddenly, she pushed her arm out.

Russ stared at her arm extended out through the shimmering purple bubble, an arm which trembled in the effort to reach him. He stepped back and looked at Lia.

Take it!
Her mouth distorted from the exertion of screaming the words. But he couldn’t hear her. He could only read her lips.
Take it! Take it!

But Russ took another step back. Right behind him, he could feel another pulsing wall of the pod. There was no more room to move.

Instinctively, Russ turned around and started shooting. But the bullets neither bounced off nor entered the pod—they just disappeared on contact. Russ threw down his rifle.

Whatever happens, God,
he thought desperately,
I hope it won’t hurt.

Suddenly, the pod wall stretched out to re-absorb Lia’s hand and it was just Russ alone.

Lia pressed herself against the wall of the pod, her wild eyes staring out at him.

Now the pod felt like a giant heartbeat pounding in his ears and reverberating over his body.

He grabbed his face and cringed before the blow he knew was coming.

The purple mass throbbed against him until he thought he couldn’t take it anymore and he felt his Glock holster fall away—and then suddenly, everything was quiet.

A sudden peace enveloped Russ.

Slowly, his hands slid from his face and he saw Lia standing before him, smiling.

And all of the sudden, he knew things—he just understood them. And he knew that Lia understood them too. Everything he’d done to get ready for this moment had helped. But it was this final act that clinched his acceptance into the pod. Even at the very last moment, he’d been given that final chance to rectify himself. And he succeeded.

The people left behind, the people pushed into another dimension would continue to exist, but not in the way Lia and Russ and all the others absorbed into the pods would. They were ready for the next level of existence.

It wasn’t warm or cold in the pod; it was like there was no need for warmth or cold.

Russ could intuit Lia’s thoughts and feelings and he knew that she intuited his too.

And suddenly, they knew this child inside Lia’s body. It was the daughter Russ and Emma had aborted—though back then, it had been too early to even know it was a daughter—and somehow, this unborn baby girl now held a spark of Emma’s soul within its own. Russ and Lia’s arms intertwined as they gazed at each other. Together, they’d rectified that wrong—and it hadn’t even been Lia’s wrong to rectify.

The pod rose with Lia and Russ inside. The violet color receded to the edges of the pod and it was almost like Lia and Russ were floating in midair. They kept smiling at each other and looking around. The pod kept rising and soon they passed through the azure strip of sky and were in the velvety star-spangled black of Space, looking down at the Earth from an angle Russ never dreamed he would ever be. Then they looked up, their gaze swiveling in all directions and saw the stars clearer and brighter than ever before. The moon was so close and bright and huge, yet so silent and lifeless.

The Sun, which seemed so warm and colorful from earth, was now a cold white splotch in the blackness of Space.

Then there was an instant of black outside the pod and suddenly, they were next to Jupiter and its moons. Jupiter floated there, silent and majestic in all its rusty colors, its bands in a constant motion Russ had never suspected from its photos.

It was wondrous, incredible to be alive and experience Space in all its glory, and Russ and Lia couldn’t stop staring all around them. But at the same time, it was almost a let-down—this was it?

So impressive—yet so cold and silent.

Outside of Earth, the Universe was dead.

And Russ knew that Lia experienced the same wonder interwoven with the same disenchantment.

As they looked out, they knew the total blackness and the beautiful yet lifeless worlds and galaxies stretched before them into total clarity, yet farther than they could ever imagine, and the incomprehensible reality of Infinite settled over them. The pod took them to Saturn and Uranus and Neptune, and again and again, they experienced the same marvel with the same thirst for something more than this glorious yet inert color and light.

A stunning comet chugged past them, its movement seemingly slow yet impossibly fast at the same time.

It moved with mindless purpose, just a large rock clothed in ice and vapor, being guided by an unseen Hand—just like everything else in this infinite Universe.

And they both knew it. Even as they stood staring in awe at the incredible churning blue of Neptune against an impossibly starry velvet sky with Jupiter and Saturn in the distance, they knew that eventually, they would tire of this wondrous scene—just like everything else in this else in this slice of dimension.

No matter how awe-inspiring something may be at first, constant exposure renders everything routine and ho-hum eventually.

Then they understood.

This was the final goodbye to this Universe.

This was all this 3-dimensional slice could offer them. It was awesome and wondrous, but still so finite. In reality, other dimensions existed. Back on Earth outside the pod, people could only sense them in dreams.

In an expanded existence, Russ and Lia would be able to see and experience more of what truly lay beyond.

And God would no longer be some hidden and ambiguous Entity open to question and doubt, but a palpable Presence infusing that World. In another existence, they would be multidimensional beings capable of experiencing reality without the “veil” cloaking this third dimension.

There were colors they’d never seen before, melodies and musical notes they’d never heard before, scents they’d never inhaled before, light they’d never experienced before, and wisdom they’d never known before—and love and understanding they’d never felt before.

And they were going there now.

##THE END##

Thank you for taking a chance on this book.

Some people like hear about how the author created the story they just finished reading. So for those people, here it is:

Several years ago, I dreamt of massive translucent sparkly purple bubbles appearing in the sky. As they multiplied, there wasn’t enough room for both them and all of us, so they ended up squishing us out of this dimension. The odd thing is, I woke up from this seemingly scary dream with a wonderful feeling of joy and serenity. I asked myself why something as terrifying as massive purple bubbles squishing people out of the world would be such a happy thing. This book developed from the answers to that question.

Thank you very much to Elizabeth Flynn for her eagle-eyed and speedy proofreading.

And thank you a million times to all those bloggers who generously offer so much practical help to self-publishers they’ve never met and may never meet—especially
Eibhlin MacIntosh
,
Joanna Penn
,
Lynn Johnston
, and
Catherine Ryan Howard
.

And thank you to authors Rabbi Shalom Arush and Rivka Levy (
Talk to God and Fix Your Health
) for their life-transforming books.

Rivka Levy’s ideas also come in bite-sized formats, like her pocket guides:
The How, What and Why of Talking to God
(which at the time of this writing is available
here for free download
)
and
How Your Emotions are Making You Sick
. I’ve benefited so much from Rivka Levy’s ideas that I can’t help passing them on to others.

I split my life into two parts: before I read Rabbi Arush’s
The Garden of Emuna
and after I read it. It resolved my existential and philosophical struggles like nothing else ever had. And true to Jewish Law, it comes in two formats: one for Jews (
The Garden of Emuna
) and one for those who aren’t Jewish (
The Universal Garden of Emuna
). Jewish Law forbids the proselytizing of those who aren’t Jewish. For example, if you’re not Jewish, Judaism considers you as having no obligation to keep kosher or to observe the myriad other laws given in the Torah specifically to the Jewish people, like keeping the Sabbath and so on.

Judaism believes that all decent, moral non-Jews will receive their Eternal Reward, so there is no need to go around converting people to Judaism.

Therefore, Rabbi Arush created a book for Jews (which does emphasize the importance of eating kosher, keeping the Sabbath and the rest of the Ten Commandments, and so on) and a book for those who aren’t Jewish (which emphasizes the importance of the general morality incumbent upon every human being—such as the commandments against murder and stealing, etc.)

Okay, some people couldn’t care less. I understand that.

But Rabbi Arush’s insights simply became a part of me and I think my writing reflects that.

Yet most of all, thank You to God for everything.