The Purple Beyond the Eyes

Truth lies beyond it's perception by one and at times, a disguise carried once becomes a reality that remains unattached for the rest of the eternity, with truth being far from the phantom of the mind. 

By the year 2019, Danny Finch, an eleven-year-old resided with his parents — Edna and Bill at Hudson Yards, New York City. The couple had its share of friends and once in a week, there used to be at least three outing. By the looks of it, the financial condition of the couple seemed to be at par, as Edna known as a famous New York Times Best selling author and Bill, a former business analyst and a graduate from Stanford University, who managed to open his own restaurant — The Olives, three years prior and at times boasts of the business doing better than anticipated and returning huge profits. They shared cordial relations with their friends or at least what they thought of it. Though their friends smiled listening to their stories, but truth being; their hearts were filled with envy and hate. 

Danny, on the other hand, used to remain shy to express himself in front of almost everyone and had no friends of his own age either. An expected criticism from the other end kept his mind highly strung and maintained his low self-esteem. Apart from these issues, he was used to gawking over his parents yelling at each other at nights, leaving him petrified. Some days passed by and yelling became a ghost of a chance, the relationship became more sour than before as both his parents rarely talked to each other and the thought of spending more time with each other made their skin crawled. Despite these differences, they were managing to put a good show in front of the world. About a fortnight later, Danny had a school camping holiday trip to Coastal Oregon for five days and about 11:30 in the morning, the school bus was supposed to be on his doorstep.

 By 11:15 am, Danny was well-prepared with all his needs taken care of. None of his parents were awake by this time today, which was seemingly odd as normally they schedule their sleep until 7:30 in the morning. Danny, at first, knocked on the door and awaited a response, but he heard no voice come back. Danny entered through the door and gazed at his parents slept, with a cloth wrapped around his mother's neck and blood stains over her forehead. He recognized his father asleep beside her, with marks around his neck. He kept on nudging his mother, but it appeared that she instead intended to simulate that she wasn't able to hear him or even sense her son's presence, he received a similar response from his father as well. Danny exited his parents room, after a while and headed himself towards the kitchen. While on his way, he was taken aback to notice the front door of the house left wide opened and besides the door, a gun lying by and soon enough, all the gloomy outlooks leapt into his mind and he ran for his parents room, only to find them responding the same way as earlier. In the meantime, Danny made himself a breakfast and decided to completely ignore the existence of the gun. 

By 11:29 am, the bus arrived and Danny departed along with it. While being seated on the bus and gazing at the tress passing by, he encountered the moments that happened a day prior. He recalled the images of his mother recalling the times when her father, a well-known businessman, who even after despising her husband agreed to lend money again and again for his descending restaurant business. Danny continued to gaze at the scene, even after being alarmed with the thought of his father thrashing his mother. He saw his father burst into flames, threatening his mother for her life. He abruptly grabbed his mother's hair and popped her head onto the nearby wooden coffee table. Danny shredded tears watching his mother laid on the floor, helplessly with blood oozing it's way out of her head. Bill had just seated himself on the couch, in front of the coffee table and his body shivered abruptly as he heard his mobile phone rung. He answered the call with his hands trembling, as if he knew that his most fearful nightmare was about to occur. While being on the call, he went on pleading the person on the other side of the line, assuring him that he will receive his money in the next couple of days.

 Eventually as the call ended, Bill's eyes were filled with tears and Edna's rage developed into anxiousness. While Bill delved himself into a well of sorrow and started to pour himself scotch in a whiskey tumbler, she kept on insisting him to tell her about the conversation. Bill sobbed and replied back with a low pitch, he told her that the payment had been due by the past two years and that; the person on the other side of the line had told him that he and his family, as a witness would be terminated, provided if Bill is unable to reimburse him his money by 11:50 pm of the same day. Upon realizing that her own life was at stake because of her husband's dull witted management skills, she began protesting for her and Danny's protection. For a few minutes, Bill ignored her protest and kept on tossing off alcohol repeatedly. As Edna kept insisting her point, Bill's outrage soared and the moment finally came, when Bill lost his patience and he grabbed the glass, filled with scotch tightly and used it to whack Edna's head open. The glass shattered in fragments over Edna's head and scotch spilled over her body. The sight of his family in complete ruins, left Danny running for his room and weep himself to sleep eventually, an hour later at 10:45 pm. 

With a downcast facial expression, Danny continued to gaze outside the school bus. Later on, he began to scrutinize that the trees and shrubs had begun to grow new mint- green leaves again, with birds carolling over it's branches and baked apple smell of the spring was in the air, gardens along the way filled with flowers covered in a cluster of warm greens, yellows, orangey reds and peachy pink colours and a blow of fresh breeze blew past his hair, as he leapt his head outside the window. He allowed himself to leap into the joy of the scenario that he was witnessing and brush off memories of the past.