A Tale Of Time

Six

                                                                                                                                                        Age of Vianna-Heler

                                                                                                                                                         Year 2750B

                                                                                    VITALE

PEOPLE WHO couldn't take no for an answer were the worst kind of people. I continued my walk, uncaring but irritated at how persistent the media could be about something so unimportant. I mean, who cared that Cinema's hottest couple had just imploded in a delicious infidelity scandal of who did what? The economy of Vianna-Heler was declining day by day and the worth of our currency- the Yul- was depreciating exponentially without explanation. The country had never really been financially strong since its amalgamation but recent times had seen countless inflations and depressions that sucked half the populace into a spiral of unemployment and poverty. And the only thing that the media could deem worthy of their time was Opal and my dirty laundry.

Humans...

Prioritizing rubbish.

I left the cinema, looking briefly for Violet Girl, Adrianna. She was gone, vanished like the wind in the bustle of the dwindling crowd around the red carpet. It was wise that she wasn't caught anywhere near here, but futile all the same. Within hours, one of the gossip sites would have found her, her family, social security number and traced her genealogy back to the days of her tap-dancing ancestors that lived out of rotten knapsacks. And I didn't want to talk about how the media would hound her doorsteps for days and dig up every dirty story (even as inconsequential as a bullying report) and every embarrassing photo (like a bad hair day at a class picture.) Ship names would be made and insults will be hurled everywhere online until my PR would have to come up with a scheme to salvage the situation...

Speaking of which...

I was halfway down the carpet, blocking out the screams of the crowd and the questions of the vultures, I felt my phone vibrating violently in my trouser pocket. I was surprised he hadn't called earlier.

I picked and kept walking, "Zayn!"

"Vitale, Hayden's called and he said something about a two-way cheating scandal that erupted at the cinema-"

Hayden said? More like screamed his head off in surprise.

I huffed and signaled for the valet to bring my car over, "I'm kind of in the middle of a swarm right now and they're asking so many questions," I stopped and glared at a cameraman that was all but in my face, "Do you mind?"

He paled and stepped back, but another one took his place. I groaned, praying for the valet's quick return. I turned my attention back to my agent, "Sorry about that, someone was in my face. I'm about to go home now. I promise. I'll fill you in on everything tomorrow."

He hummed with skepticism, "Are you sure?"

"Of course." My car was in sight.

"No detours?"

I caught the key one handed and opened the Mustang, "Do I ever?"

He sighed. I wasn't one to be in a scandal, everyone on my management team knew that. And I kept my word. If I said tomorrow, it was going to be tomorrow. The mess was too big to ignore.

"Okay. Drive safely."

"Yes Zayn." I rolled my eyes and entered my car, shutting the door behind me. Everything was suddenly better; the noises were muted and I could think past the sudden urge to push someone out of my face.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw King Marcus emerge from the theatre doors. Almost immediately, the press turned from me and faced him, taking pictures of his overwhelming majesty as though he was making news just by standing there. He stood, after all, like he was the highest person in a hundred mile radius. Which he was, all things considered. But there was something malicious about him, like he was against the world. Especially when he looked at me again.

This time he was smiling.

Did he hate me or like me? Because his attitude was giving me whiplash. Everybody was an actor in their own way, posing and hiding behind carefully constructed facades built with societal values taken into great consideration. But this man was the kind of actor who stood in a class of his own. Like nothing could touch him.

It irritated me.

A hard smack on my window drew my attention away from the King. Now, nothing under the sun had the right to touch my cars but me and the occasional auto mechanic. So the old, haggard looking lady that had her wide paws splayed on my window was officially the most irritating thing I'd seen the entire day.

I wound down the window, "Excuse me, ma'am. Do you need something?"

My voice was harsh, laced with arrogance and annoyance. It usually got people scurrying away. Not her...

This old lady was fearless.

It was evident in her ash colored eyes that were so focused it made me uncomfortable. Her hair was a mess, silver and curly but it was huge, covering the rest of her body within its tresses. But the uncanny thing was how familiar she was. Like I'd seen her before.

The de ja vu that had been going on was becoming problematic.

"Vitale," Her voice was clear, timeless, "May I have a word with you?"

It was sudden, so sudden I didn't even have the time to wonder why she knew my name, another hit of pain washed over my head, significantly less than the earlier but still harsh. It pulled me back into that black and white world that I couldn't understand, like a scrambled movie with no words...

Only pictures and pictures and pictures...

And Ariana.

"Vitale, please we have to talk!" Her voice was cutting through the dark. Like Adrianna's had. And I wanted her to keep talking, so these stupid headache would shut up.

"Please," I croaked, banging my head against the steering wheel in a crude attempt to return from the black and white world.

"Vitale!"

And then suddenly...

THERE ARE many schools of thought concerning death. Philosophers have lived and died, staring at the stars to unravel the mystery of where people went when they vanished, when their souls disappeared into the void. It was easy to dream of countless, juvenile possibilities and I had, once upon a time with my mother and my sister under the cover of stars in our little garden.

We were wrong.

Death felt like roses.

Cloying, sickly sweet and injurious. The longer you embrace it, the longer life's blood flows away till you were a shell of nothing.

I didn't embrace it for long.

I said earlier that I would remember this day forever.

And unfortunately for me, forever was a very, very long time.

"WE'RE LOSING him."

I'd heard that countless times over the last few blips in time. How long had I been asleep? Days, months, years? Endless spaces of time were left in the dark with bursts of emotion that cut through the gloom like comets. 

The old woman...

What had happened?

Why was I in so much pain?

"Mister Vinchesi, please stay with us!"

I was there, wasn't I? Why would they be begging me to stay? Ridiculous doctors, always overreacting...

THE FIRST time I saw the Girl in Purple, she was in front of what must've been her house. It wasn't anywhere fancy, to say the least. But it was antique, timeless and undoubtedly peaceful. In fact, to find somewhere as quaint as this in our modern world, one would have to sand fill an entire island kilometers away, on either side, from any strain of civilization.

And even then there would be no peace like this.

She couldn't see me standing right behind her as she banged on the wooden doors, tears trailing down her pale cheeks. She couldn't have been more than eight. And she'd been locked out.

"Mama! Mama! Mama please open the door!"

It must've been going on a while, her hands were bruised with banging and her face was splotched red with exertion. The sight of her, a girl I didn't know, a girl whose life was privy to me for an unknown reason, was sad. 

Dolorous in its simplicity.

And so she continued to knock and knock and knock until she fell, exhausted onto her knees heart-wrenching sobs wracking her frail body as she cried out.

"SOMEBODY PLEASE!"

Someone opened the door. It was a tall, hard woman. Her blonde hair was mussed with sleep and her blue eyes red with intoxication. Was this the kind of life the Purple Girl led? Was this her guardian? Her mama?

"Mama!" She cried when she sat up, barreling into the woman's arms. All was forgiven: locking her outside, letting the cool air bite at her skin till she was white as snow. It shouldn't have been...

She should've been taken better care of.

"Mama! Aaron locked the door! He told me that I'd sleep outside-"

"Stop your yapping girl! My head hurts."

The girl shut up and I frowned. The need to interfere -and this need was alien to me- burdened my chest. But somehow, I knew that I couldn't.

Purple Girl tried to scurry into the house but the woman's big body was in the way, her eyes were piercing and full of loathing.

An exasperated sigh left her lips and she looked to the sky like it had punished her, "Why is Philip such a patriotic fool?"

Who was Philip? I must've been the only one in the out because the little girl's eyes widened with recognition.

"Ma-"

"I said you should shut up, Ariana."

Ariana.

That Ariana?

The girl in black and white... was this child?

She complied and I stepped forward, more engrossed in this than I'd been before. Because this was Ariana. And every thing in me told me that I should commit these memories to heart.

"Philip should've never volunteered to take you in. Things are hard enough being refugees without your extra mouth to feed. And all you do is antagonize my children."

Her voice was a whisper, like she was speaking to herself. But Ariana was right before her and so was I. So we could hear her clearly.

"Take me in? Antagonize...? But Aaron and Adela always-"

The woman hit her hard across the cheek. It wasn't a hard slap. Sloppy at best, the most a drunk could do. But to a child who called her Mama?

It was a sacrilege.

"Just..." The woman was tearing up now, "Just go away, Ariana!"

The child flinched and she stepped back, her body shaking with pain and disbelief. The child probably didn't understand the full gravity of what was going on. She was a burden to this family, this family that was not her own. And maybe she could grasp the minimum of the pain, by following the given order.

But this was an eternal pain; a weight she'd bear forever.

I hated the family immediately.

I tried to call her but she was already gone, running through the dark fields, under the moonlight with her purple dress billowing in the wind, probably not knowing which way to go.

And I followed, because I had no other choice.