Purple Sun

*All lines followed by an asterisk are lyrics to a song called ‘Mr. Sun’ by Raffi. Credit for the lyrics go to the original songwriter. Link to 'Mr. Sun': https://youtu.be/593B-bVPWjw

These little children are asking you

To please come out so we can play with you

Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun

Please shine down on me*

It was a stupid song. Especially when you considered the fact that no one had seen the sun for years. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Sometimes a helicopter pilot plunged through the covering of smothering gray clouds to check if the sun was still there. But since that fateful day, five - or was it six? Who cared, really - years ago, all it had done was rain. Sometimes, if we were lucky, it hailed. 

The only time it wasn't raining was when it was drizzling. 

And, even then, everything was still miserably wet. 

The meteorologists had it easy. Their accuracy rates? Absolutely soaring. Rain, every day of the week, one hundred percent chance. Even the deserts were getting rain. The Sahara was a full-blown rainforest at this point. 

Some said the rising sea levels weren’t helping anything. I was inclined to agree with them. 

It seemed logical, since the continents were slowly but surely shrinking in size. The Great Lakes were getting larger and larger, eating the U.S. from the inside.

Those who lived in higher elevations didn't have as many problems as we did, though they did have to deal with the constant downpour that washed away any soil that they had. But at least their streets weren't flooded, at least they had decent electricity, and cars were still somewhat useful on whatever roads that weren’t flooded.

Down here, alligators and fish swam down main street while old cars drifted aimlessly down a forgotten avenue. The occasional shark decided to inhabit the countryside. People got around by boat now.

I paddled through the doorway of the lobby on my kayak. The doors, and a small part of the front wall had been removed so that boats could come and go as they pleased. It probably wasn't good for the building's integrity, but I doubted that anyone cared. Most people were worried about drowning these days. Before, furniture had been scattered across the carpet. Now watercraft of all kinds were moored in the flooded lobby, from paddleboards to kayaks and even a few small jon boats. 

I swung my legs out of the cockpit and dropped into the waist-high water. Murky water threatened to splash into my waders and soak my dry socks.

I hated wet socks with a passion.

They sucked all of the warmth out of your feet, and then the rest of you. And the only thing worse than being wet all the time was being cold and wet.

I reached down into the water and searched for the chain that I used to tether my kayak to. Boat theft was common enough to warrant a bit of extra security. The metal was heavy, and doubly so under the water. I fished around for my keys and secured the kayak to the chain with a padlock. 

The first five steps were submerged, and so the footing on them was treacherous. I climbed two flights of stairs to where the first habitable apartments were, wishing the elevators still worked. All this stupid water had fritzed out the electricity a while ago. Three other families lived on this floor with us, all forced here after their homes had been fully submerged along the coast. Obviously it wasn’t much better here. But the cities in the Appalachians and the Rockies and other mountain ranges in the world had filled up years ago, so this is where we had ended up. 

We hadn't lived near the coast, but near the Mississippi River in Arkansas, before a flash flood wiped the entire city. Thousands were killed.

I inserted the apartment key into the door handle and entered. My rain gear peeled off like a second skin, and I hung it to dry on the hooks next to the door.

My seven year old brother, Jonah, was sitting on the living room floor with his art supplies spread around him in a wide arc.

He didn't have much - a notebook that had accidentally been dropped into a massive puddle and then carefully dried, and a 24 pack of Crayola crayons… minus a few of them. Enough to keep him occupied. 

"Where's Dad?" I asked impatiently. 

"He went out," he replied, not looking up from his drawing.

'Out' could mean any number of things. 

He'd be back.

The couch let out a groan of protest as I flopped onto it. The ceiling greeted my eyes, brown water stains splattered across it. 

"Noah," Jonah waved a wrinkled piece of paper in front of my face, crayon covering the majority of it. "Look."

I roughly took it from his hands, examined it for a split second, and then dropped it carelessly. The paper floated down, landing on top of the yellow crayon box. 

"You didn't look," Jonah said in exasperation. 

"Yes I did."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"What did I draw then?" 

"Grass. A flower. A tree. And a giant, floating, purple ball."

He was drawing things that barely existed anymore. Things he could barely remember. He’d been… two? When all this had started? 

Bright green grass and small red flowers were drawn in a crude accuracy of how they had been years ago, instead of the weedy stuff that floated under the water in a ghastly trance now. And there was a tree. Standing straight up, instead of smashed into a building.

"That's the sun," he corrected me. 

"The sun?" I snatched the paper up. "That's not the sun."

"Yes, it is."

"'Yes, it is,'" I mocked. "No. No, it's not. The sun is bright yellow. Yellow and warm and-"

Jonah was staring up at me, tears lining his eyes. 

He ripped the paper out of my hands, clutching it to his chest. Tears dripped down his face, splattering the drawing. Like rain on a sunny world. 

My heart sank. 

Great.

"Jonah…" I said carefully. "I'm sorry…"

"No, you aren't." 

"Jonah, I am."

"No you aren't. You're not sorry. You don't care. You don't like my drawings and I don't get to go out with you and Dad."

He gathered his art supplies and stomped away.

I fisted my hands and pressed them into my eyes.

Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun

Please shine down on me

Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun

Hiding behind a tree*

"Stoppit," I muttered to no one in particular. 

But the echo of the song remained in my head, along with the imprint of her face in my mind. Wispy blond hair, and brown sparkling eyes. A wistful smile on her face. 

The sharp patter of footsteps met my ears, and I rolled to my stomach on the creaky couch. Jonah raced past me, slammed into the door, whipped it open, and was gone. 

Springing up off the couch, I pounded after him.

“JONAH!” I yelled. “COME BACK!”

He was running away. Because of me. 

Great.

I chased after him. Others flew out of their apartments, drawn by the fact that I was yelling for him to stop and come back. They joined me, but didn’t seem to be paying any attention. Some flew right past Jonah, doing everything they could to get down the stairs as fast as possible.

A man shoved past me to reach the stairs. I crashed into my dad at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, and waved for him to follow me, gasping out Jonah’s name. His eyebrows went up, and he followed. 

I heard the roar of motors, and the sound of people splashing in water, shoving past each other to get to their boats. Dad’s paddleboard had been shoved to the side in the mad rush, and I quickly flung myself on top of it, scanning the short waves for Jonah. He was doggy-paddling behind someone’s canoe, and I shoved off towards him. 

“Jonah,” I said, grabbing him under the arms and hoisting him up onto the paddleboard. He kicked out at me, and I almost dropped him. “Jonah,” I pinched him reproachfully. “Stoppit, you’re going to fall in and drown.”

He stopped, “Noah!” A giant smile filled his face. “Outside! Go!”

The excitement in his voice seemed to keep him from articulating any further. 

I let the lobby clear out a bit, wondering why everyone had suddenly rushed out. It hadn’t been because of Jonah, I realized. 

Something was up. 

Dad was drifting next to me in the kayak, and we paddled our way over to the doors, and through them. I surveyed the surroundings, finding more and more people pouring out of their buildings. None were wearing the usual rain gear, and even less were in their boats. Some just stood in the middle of the road, water sloshing around their waists, their eyes squinting up at the sky. 

Jonah stood at the front of the paddleboard, balancing lightly on the balls of his feet. He could barely stand still. He, too, was staring up at the sky. 

What are they all-

“Oh,” I whispered. 

The sky. The sky was the lightest blue, instead of the stormy gray that we’d all become accustomed to. 

And, at its highest peak, was the sun. 

Bright yellow and warm. I looked around, seeing the city in a whole new light. Everything shone. The water reflected the beams of light like a shifting mirror and the glassy windows of the skyscrapers were dappled with the final drops of rain that had fallen only minutes ago. I could feel it touching my skin and filling me up until it spilled over. I resisted the urge to sprawl out on the board like a cat.

Well, now the meteorologist’s streak was broken.

I looked over at my Dad, who was grinning like a maniac. Jonah was standing there in silence, his jaw slack.  

“Look!” he breathed, pointing up at the sky.

“I see it,” I told him. “I see.”

“Remember!?” His attention snapped back to me and he bounced up and down, rocking the board.

“Sit down,” I interrupted. “You’re going to flip the board.”

He obeyed, but the energy didn’t leave him. “Remember Mom’s song?!”

Of course I remembered. I remembered the flood. And her. Thousands had been killed but only one of them had mattered to me.

“Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, please shine down on me.*” Jonah sang in awe. 

“Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, hiding behind a tree.*” I heard my dad echo.

The golden sun was shining down on us. Finally. Some were laughing in delight, others standing silently, like they’d been frozen when the light had poured over them. 

Something struck me as odd. I tapped Jonah, which successfully snapped him out of whatever he was thinking about. “If you remembered Mom’s song, then why did you make the sun purple in your picture?”

He shrugged, turning his gaze toward the sky again; he couldn’t get enough of it. I could only imagine the excitement when he finally got to see the stars. 

A few moments passed before he replied. “I lost my yellow crayon.”