TUV

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. The streetlights below bloomed from beneath, exactly one-half of them the same violet hue. On February 20, 2020, at exactly 8:20 PM, each and every streetlight went out for exactly two seconds before turning back on—and each and every streetlight shone purple.

The shift came shortly after that, precipitated by the hum of the newly purpled lights. They'd resounded with a definitive buzz prior to, like the clamoring of a bumblebee blundering her way into a bluebell. Now the streetlights hummed with wondrous whimsy, the sort of hum a grandmother makes as she tends to her begonias.

The purple flowers in the gardens began to glow with that same light, regardless of the time of day; soon after, anything purple picked up the glow: eggplants, hummingbirds, crayons, Ms. Johnson's curtains down the way. Finally, one evening in April, when the sun had tucked itself in for the night, the clouds waddled their way over, caught the glow, and decided to stay a spell. They didn't let go of their rain until the end of spring; but when they did, it came down as purple as the clouds that had spouted it—Mr. Ortega down at the bait shop still claims he heard Prince's guitar solo playing softly in the background when it happened.

The purpling happened in other parts of Florida—other parts of the country, as well—but not like it had in Toho. News teams drove in from all over the state to report on the "ultraviolet wave," as it came to be known. The mayor of Toho declared February 20 the town's "Purpleversary," to be feted annually with a Purple Parade and Purple Fair. The Orlando City Soccer Club posed for photos and signed autographs at town hall. Gatorade filmed a commercial for their new "Electric Purp" flavor. Wiccans from as far away as Vancouver came to charge their amethysts under the streetlights—Mr. Fortlow left with his tail between his legs after a pair of pretty witches puzzled and laughed at his outstretched power cords. He still looks wistfully out the window of the hardware shop, chin resting on his hand: "They said they wanted to charge 'em."

Time passed, taking novelty with it. Over the course of two years, Toho was rezoned out of Newsworthy and into the jurisdiction of Obscure. The tourists, trickling into Toho over the preceding months, ceased dropping in at all. The city council decided it was time to heed the warnings of the scant but vocal naysayers among the townsfolk and have the lights replaced. The lightning followed.

Aberdeen Chin claims to have seen it first. He was doing upkeep on the power lines outside Christ Almighty Presbyterian Church when a massive purple bolt snaked down from the sky and pulverized a palm tree in the yard. Aberdeen nearly fell from his perch from the shock of it all, not to mention the force of the thunder that followed. The palm now reduced to a smoking husk, the streetlights crackled gray and orange, the dappled color rocking in an 8-bit rendition of the flames. When the fire had been put out, the streetlights quietly, gradually made their way back to purple.

Two days later, the manufacturers of the streetlight bulbs, Acumen, Ltd., sent out a team of repair workers to take out the old, "defective" bulbs and replace them with proper white ones; and they did manage to replace…some. Then the lightning hit the workers’ sprinter van, not twice, but twenty times. A withered skeleton of sizzling chassis stood in its place and…well, not much else. The repair workers were thankfully tucked away in their hotel rooms at Toho Suites when it happened; still, they quit on the spot.

Acumen, Ltd., not to be deterred—"It's Florida, a lot worse could happen," in the words of their CEO—sent out another team. And another. And another. Each one replaced exactly 20 bulbs. And each one was struck by purple lightning exactly twenty times. Eventually, Acumen issued a flowery, effusive apology to "The Distinguished Persons of Toho," quietly cutting them a check with no small number of zeroes. The naysayers stopped griping, as the bulbs in their part of town now shone an immaculate white; and people on the Purple Side of town went about their business.

Seraphim Jones, one such Purpside resident, stood on her grandmother's verandah, staring out at the lazy waters of Lake Tohopekaliga. The pink of the sky—on certain nights in early spring, it refused to go dark—rippled along the surface of the water in the distance. Wherever the purple rain had fallen into the lake, the water had changed with it. The spattered purple and pink, a patch of Monet peonies, floated along with the gentle current.

Seraphim held her breath and fluttered her brown fingers over the clusters of purple where it met the pink, exhaling as she reached the end of its course. She'd leave town soon, heading somewhere out of sight, way beyond the far side of the lake. Her stomach tumbled when she thought of it: college was the next step for a bright girl like her; and Toho would be waiting for her when she graduated. Staring out at the water, though, she knew she didn't want to leave.

Her phone buzzed from the patio table; she shook the heavy thoughts from her head and looked at the screen before answering it: Juana.

"Yeah, dímelo."

The voice on the other end of the line sputtered and sniffled, only managing out one broken word, over and over.

"S…Seraphim!...Seraph-phim!"

Seraphim switched modes from girl talk to doting sister, plugging one of her ears to focus on Juana's voice.

"Whoa, girl," she cooed. "It's okay—I'm here. Háblame. What's wrong?"

"The…the baby….Beatriz's baby…."

Seraphim waited.

"What about the baby, Juana?"

"She…."

Juana let out a sob, swallowing it with a gulp.

"She came out purple."