Joan asked her about the color of her eyes. “They come from the sky,” smiling, she added, ”At least that is what my mother always told me.”
Allyahn’s eyes are purple. Not violet, but purple. Purple is not a frequency of light; it is a combination of light-red and blue. Ally’s eyes are not the violet of Elizabeth Taylor’s, oh no! Violet is between magenta and blue, a pinky purple. Ally’s eyes are true purple, that great dark hue of Crayola crayons. No human has such a color. Some eyes appear so, at times.
Her planet has the regular gases: oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, but it also has many more small particles of dust and water, plus much more hydrogen than we do, about 20%. The particles reflect the light in all directions, as it does here on Earth, but the hydrogen emits red, cyan, blue, and violet in such proportions that the result is a true purple, a darker world than ours. Ally told Joan of her childhood, running through the fields that flickered silver under that gorgeous sky. “We still have the sun shining through, and the moons at night.” “The sky turns black as yours”. “But it is not the same,” Joan responded. “I cannot imagine a world without the blue sky; it goes with our blue oceans.” That is not really true; our skies are a product of the reflections of light from the gases, sun, and particles, just as Ally’s are.
Joan wondered whether that darker world caused Ally’s white skin. Just beneath the surface, you can see the purple blood that flowed from her heart. She thought that might be too personal. Ally was very private, so she was quiet and listened to Ally describe her planet.
“It’s small, smaller than Earth, and one more planet out from our sun, the 4th. There is a smell in the air, like a grape/licorice. Even today, I miss that smell. It is like fresh air here; we hardly notice it. The smell comes from a plant that blooms most of the year, which for us is 400 days long. It has a silver flower that twinkles in the sun.” Ally finished with a wee smile.
“I would love to see it,” Joan replied, wondering if that could ever be.
Ally’s face dropped, and a look of sorrow came over her. “My people were killed by a similar group that attacked here. I’m afraid no one could greet you.”
She slowly rose and walked back into the meeting, content to leave the conversation there.
The End
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© J M Strasser March 2026 All Rights Reserved