1
"Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No good, Very bad day" was one of Patricia's favorite children's books from her mom's collection. It was such an honest story about how little it took to stir the emotions of a human being. She loved stories, but she didn't want the pressure of living up to the authors before her, so she chose a writing job in advertising instead. No one ever got too much critique for the stories told in car commercials, so it seemed like a safe space to write without being listened to--at least not too closely. For eleven years of her adult life, Patricia worked in an advertising agency. One of few left on Earth, one of many in the ever-expanding universe.
After years of carefully avoiding critique, she suddenly finds herself part of a team tasked to tackle a brief unlike any she has ever received: get Outer-Earth humans to migrate back to Earth. Now the universe would be listening, no pressure at all.
She lowered the volume on her earphone as the speaker walked into the room. She had no real intention of switching it off completely, a little hum always helped keep her mind on track. She looked around, seeing so many unfamiliar faces, so many bodies, though in a large enough room, made her shift in her seat. She started to draw eyes to push the discomfort out of her body through her pen.
Her entire agency had only three people in it, the average size of the handful of agencies left on Earth. It wasn't a popular profession, why would anyone want to talk about the merits of lavender soap in a barely inhabited planet? But she relished the opportunity to tell un-listened-to stories plus one of her favorite Old Earth shows was about a girl who worked in an advertising agency dominated by men. She was obsessed with the character of Peggy Sue, so Patricia gravitated to the profession a long time ago and today here she was: tasked to save the Earth.
She looked around at the different faces surrounding her. The team was comprised of a hundred people of varying expertise, Patricia was one of five copywriters representing The Former Regions of South East Asia, which were long submerged in the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
What language would it be in?
English and Mandarin.
Why?
These are still the most widely spoken languages in the Outer Earth Worlds.
What possible reason would they have to want to come home?
Well, we've done 10 years of market research and condensed all of that into a ten-page document, which my associate Sergey will be handing out as soon as everyone is ready to settle down.
And why would we want them back?
You need them. You need us.
Why? We've survived this long without you.
But you have not reproduced enough and you have not advanced your technologies either.
Well you did take all the smartest, strongest, most fertile, and wealthiest people with you.
Point taken. Yet here you are, a dying people with not enough children produced to provide food for the world and before long the legacy of the Earth's human race, its last remaining caretakers, will vanish as if no human ever inhabited the Earth.
Silence followed by muttering.
Well that was harsh.
"Sergey is so cute," Mindy, her account manager, leans toward Patricia, staring at the somewhat disproportionate, blonde and green-eyed boy handing out documents. "As always, grateful for your contribution to the group discussion, Mindy." Patricia says, her sheet already half-filled with eyes drawn in different ways.
"Not cute-cute, but endearing." Mindy rests her head on her palm. "Well, if you ever go on a date, tell him to stop killing our trees?" Patricia nudges the bound document, rolling her eyes at it.
The older gentleman spoke again. His name was Quanterlon, named after the scientist Johannes Quanterlon who founded the Quanterlon region on the planet Hoagar. It was mostly occupied by the British, though the last queen's descendants did not live there, but as such Quanterlon spoke with a British accent in a small voice, like he'd swallowed a bit of helium from a balloon. This had something to do with Hoagar's atmosphere, but Patricia couldn't recall specifics. It was only tiny differences like these that set humans on different planets apart from each other.
For the most part, the migrants successfully replicated Earth's environment on the selected planets for inhabitation, but a few things were still out of their control. They maybe could've solved it but technology needed to be directed towards the migrant groups being able to provide each other knowledge for outer-Earth survival, so the migration leaders decided long ago that if it fell within a margin of acceptable-change-for-distanced-group-evolution then the environmental differences were not to be addressed. Suffice to say, no one grew tentacles or extra eyes.
"On top of this briefing document, each team will be paired with one representative from the Outer-Earth planets. You may pick their brains to find out what communication might be most effective for their human sector. Your work will be tested in their home planets to see its performance. Until we get a passing grade, your work will not be released."
Like a focus group discussion?
I've heard of those.
Have you, really?
I watch a lot of Old Earth television.
Reliable source.
Whatever it is, it sounds like a lot of work.
It is a lot of work because this is a huge responsibility.
But what about our Human Continuity Responsibilities?
I'm sorry?
Oh that's right. You have machines to produce food for you and build things for you.
Ah, you mean farming and such?
No, I meant sunbathing and such.
Is the hostility quite necessary?
If you send down your technologies instead of adding more work to our already heavy workload then maybe the hostilities can do other things.
We cannot spare our technologies as it keeps our societies running. We can work together to build enough spare parts to send here but it will take at least a hundred years to transport them and by then you will be long gone.
Are you obsessed with wiping us out?
I am in fact obsessed with saving you, and the more time we waste bickering, the less time we have to get people down here.
Ok but just so you know, you wasted our trees with this document and if you read your history books then you know we do have email here and next time you can just send it that way.
Email. How wonderfully basic!
2
Patricia was listening to her work playlist which consisted of music she would never listen to otherwise. The music was effective at emptying Patricia's cluttered brain, teeming with thoughts which could simply be categorised as stupid and food. She listened to the music she didn't know the words to, and let the melodies she felt nothing for guide her brain to a more productive space. On the brink of a first, bubbling thought, a paperclip box hits her head.
She looks up to see Mindy mouthing something she has no chance of comprehending. Mindy is so astoundingly bad at mouthing things because she has this complete lack of control over her facial muscles. When Patricia first met her, she thought Mindy was a bitch. Her face looked like it couldn't be bothered to bring out an expression, ever. And while she laughed often, she always looked like she was being sarcastic. It took nearly two weeks for Patricia to realise that Mindy was a genuinely bubbly girl.
Patricia shakes her head at Mindy and swivels her chair in the direction of her very intense pointing. As she turns, she bumps right into a pair of very skinny legs. "Patricia?" the skinny legs shuffle around, with very little conviction to stay on the ground. Patricia looks up to a face with buggy gray eyes and gray hair, though despite the color of his hair he only looked to be around her age.
"Carl?" she asks back. He puts out his hand to shake hers, an Old Earth gesture kept alive through inter-planetary migration and group distanced-evolution. "Nice to meet you," he says. She nods and offers him a seat on a Panda-shaped bean bag that came with her desk. His legs stick up against his chest as he politely drops to the ground, creating an awkward kshh kshh sound as he shuffles around on the seat.
Did you just get here?
Um, yeah I did. Just today.
How was your journey?
Long. About a week.
Sorry to hear.
It's alright, i was mostly sedated. The vaccines though, were not so great.
How many'd you get?
“Vaccines or sedatives?” Carl laughs at his own joke, his knees stretching outward, the Panda underneath going kssh kssh with him. "Hi, I'm Mindy," Mindy suddenly appears, casually seated on the floor as if she'd been there the whole time. "I'm Patricia's account manager and I keep things organized so if you ever need to know more about really important things about this project, just give me a shout, hey?" Carl puts out his hand for the standard ritual shake, "nice to meet you, Mindy. I think you arranged for my accommodations. The 7-bedroom mansion is sweet, but a smaller house would've been fine too."
“Ooh is it haunted?” she asks wide-eyed “its been abandoned since the migration.”
Carl’s grey eyebrows lift up, “you guys still believe in that stuff huh?” “You don’t?” Patricia’s body snaps forward, physically pulled back into the conversation. “Well when you move to a place that’s never been inhabited before, I guess the concept dies with it. Pun intended,” Carl grins.
But what about ghost stories?
What about them?
“Well…you don’t have them.” Patricia loved a good ghost story. Shadows in the moonlight, inexplicable rustling, pupils going white. She loved an exorcism story too. It always gave her nightmares but she liked the part of herself it unlocked, the fear and turbulence it caused inside her.
So is there a coffee shop around here?
Sorry, no one chose to be a barista in this town.
You mean I can't get a coffee anywhere?
You can make one, its been done.
"Some welcome committee..." Carl mutters but Patricia doesn’t hear him. She has her earphones on and is halfway into packing her things into her backpack. She’s rushing to catch the hardware store open to grab supplies for her green house duties. Her lips make small quiet movements as she lists things in her head. Gloves, shovel, rake, a small pair of shears, oh a hat, maybe a wide brim one would be nice. She looks at her hand, why was she packing away the stapler? She never did very well with multitasking. "Hey, are you heading home?" Carl asks, his voice competing against music he can’t hear. He points at his ear, then gestures to hers. "Oh," Patricia pops out an earphone. "I have green house duties at 4am. I need to get some rest."
What do you do there?
Plant stuff to make up for the stuff we consume.
Oh ok... can I come?
You know I said 4 in the morning, right?
I can sleep right now.
She shrugs. It doesn’t matter to her. Then out of the corner of her eye, she sees the red elevator light point downward so she rushes off without a response.
3
She has two shovels in her hand, a green and a purple one. She knows which one she wants but she likes the song playing in the store. So she lingers, pretending to be undecided. Apart from the color, they were identical.
"Purple one, digs better.” She looks up to see Carl leaning against the shelf. Not in a cool way, like in the movies or books, but in a nervous way like he might tip the shelf over, which was what she was concerned about. "You left without saying goodbye and I wanted to ask you a few things about the project."
Patricia points at the speaker, "I like this song a lot. It's by Mariah Carey."
"Isn’t this a Christmas song?" Carl asks. “I thought it was March?”
She puts the purple shovel back in the shelf. She was always going to choose the green one, it's her favorite color. She bobs her head to the music then says, "I was thinking about doing an ad on holidays, remind people about human things that used to bring us together, that used to feel nice inside. You know? Family gatherings, celebrations, all those nostalgic things." Carl nods seeming to consider the idea, "Except Outer-Earths are generally agnostic and we still have family gatherings. Smaller ones, sure, but we do." Patricia walks to the counter with her citizen card. They scan it, noting her purchase to be listed on her account and deducted from the land territory's available supplies.
"Can you return it?" the wrinkly man at the counter asks. "I think so," Patricia said. I'm not from here and I have tools back home." She puts the tools into her backpack, "When our secondary work is done, I'll bring it back." The man stares at her, realising for the first time he's never seen her in town before. "Well, I'll be...a foreigner." He then turns to Carl, squinting and frowning deeply, "and are you... from Outer Earth?" Carl nods politely. "I don't suppose you get a lot of outsiders here?" The man shakes his head smiling. "Highlight of my decade," he says giving them each a piece of strawberry candy. Patricia pops the candy into her mouth and smiles gratefully then leaves hurriedly with her tools, once again forgetting to say goodbye.
She hears his footsteps clattering behind her. He was a messy walker and moved without rhythm. "It would open on a family busily moving around the kitchen," she says loud enough for him to hear though she knew he was having trouble keeping up. She liked to brisk walk, it felt efficient. "They'd all be doing things to prepare for something... we don't know what just yet." She stops abruptly, sucking on her strawberry candy. It tasted incredibly artificial. Delicious. "Suddenly, the doorbell rings," Patricia rings an imaginary bell in front of her, "Everyone carries out things from the kitchen and sets it on this grand Christmas table. Then they run to the hall and there's dad with the tiniest gift for all the children he had. He lets the littlest one...let's call her Olivia? So Olivia opens it and she pulls out this spark plug."
"Do you always think up stories this way?" Carl says, out of breath.
"And then, we cut to the family standing outside and hugging as the snow falls dramatically on them. Side note, Carl. You know I've never seen snow in real life?" she finally stops and turns to check on him. "Neither have I. Now do you mind if we sit down?" He points desperately at the curb. She plops down, agreeably "So Olivia has her mouth wide open. Best gift ever, she whispers. And then the camera turns to reveal a fully lit and decorated home. The camera does a slow dolly out to show the happy family as supers come in: Holidays together. An Earthly delight," she immediately pretends to gag at her choice of her words, "something like that. It's a work in progress."
Carl has his head in his hands, possibly about to faint.
"Yeah," Patricia says, "maybe not that idea." She jumps to her feet and this time says, "goodbye for real this time, Carl." Barely able to breath, Carl waves a weak palm her way.
4
"Tell me something..." Carl says, yawning on his Panda-seat. He's been up since three in the morning. His hands were wounded from digging and his legs were sore from yesterday's impromptu run. "Why does the Earth still have advertising agencies? I know land territories are mandated to produce specific items and the distribution of the items are dictated by the Earth leaders based on the standard equality formula Old Earth economists left behind. So if there's no competition for market shares and brands don't really exist and nothing is privately owned, then what are advertising agencies for?"
"You been thinking about that all morning?" Patricia responds, picking at the soil stuck underneath her fingernails. Carl shrugs his shoulders.
"We do it for posterity," she rummages through her bag for something better at cleaning nails. Maybe a paperclip? She continues, "We're a living museum of Old Earth. We keep as many old industries alive so one day humans can look back and be educated on the way Earth used to be. It's a way of preserving the Old Earth culture because even if it was bad and led to humans having to flee the planet, this is still the last version of ourselves that we had. "But why not just write about it? Keep videos, photographs, holograms, and just put it in an actual museum?" "Because it's not the same as experiencing it," Patricia says sounding like an exasperated mother explaining why the sky is blue, for the hundredth time to her child. "Being part of this role-playing world allows us to hold on to some part of ourselves we never really wanted to leave behind. I think our ancestors loved this place, loved all the things they did and achieved, and too soon it was gone because they forgot: it didn't belong to them. They were just borrowing the planet, its gravity, its life, its revolutions, its augmented moon. But they had built so much, evolved so much on it, that they couldn't bear to leave it behind. So those of us who were left behind were tasked to keep it going. We keep the heritage of the Earth alive, not in some pages on a shelf but with actual human beings with a mind, and a soul, and a beating heart. "So you don't mind being an exhibit in this living museum?" Carl says, grey eyebrows rising. "It just seems like a lot of work to protect something that clearly didn't work.”
"It is but it's who we are, and when we see how different your culture is from ours, how quickly you have forgotten your roots, then we understand fully what we are protecting," she stares deep into his grey eyes, "See you can evolve all you like, Carl but with us living, breathing, and pretending to advertise a bar soap, then you cannot erase where you came from."
5
“What if it’s like an old school tourism ad? Come to paradise...and never leave?” Patricia says through a mouthful of ham and cheese. “It starts out with this backpacker, settling into the warm sand. We hear his voice as he says, In paradise, I feel alive. Then he goes for a swim and dives deep into the ocean, seeing all the wild marine life. Then he emerges from the ocean and suddenly, he has become an old man. He’s aged well, tanned, with a huge smile on his face. He waves to someone on the shore, it’s a beautiful woman with a child who looks just like him. Then his voice speaks again, In paradise, I stayed to live.”
Carl says, “your chewed up ham and cheese was way too distracting.”
“It ends with...” Patricia taps her fingers, eyes shut, struggling for words, “It ends with, ugh, I don’t know. Move to Earth.” “Won’t people think the ocean aged him? And is this a fact? I can go swim in the ocean?” Carl asks, genuinely interested. “Sure you can.“ Patricia says, “There’s a beach nearby. It’s a bit of a bike ride but if you’re up for it we can go after my continuity work.”
So cars aren’t part of the earth posterity program?
Hm, that’s got a ring to it. And no. All gasoline is saved.
For what?
Important matters.
Like?
Like bringing people together to come up with an ad to save the earth.
Right. You couldn’t do that remotely? Work from home like they did in 2020?
Could ask you the same thing
I did in fact ask.
And?
People work best together in the same room. This is too important to risk any miscommunication
How old school
Maybe there’s truth in it
Let’s hope so. It took you a week to get here.
A week in Earth time, 2 years in mine. When I left, I was only 18. That’s why they send the young ones.
6
Carl flails his arms and legs trying desperately to swim to the surface of the ocean. Every time he emerges, he is pushed down again by another wave. Over the thunderous crashing, he faintly hears Patricia yelling his name. His arms and legs are exhausted, unused to the physical exertion. He feels his body giving up on him as he is pushed into the water again. His body grows limp, his throat dry and thirsty for oxygen. He feels his body release too much air, but his chest aches from holding it in. He thinks about his mom, how proud she was when he was chosen for this job. And here he is, only three days in and already failing.
As he floats gently in the violent water, he feels his body moving upward. He looks down to see his legs limp. He can no longer tell if he is still in his body or if perhaps he has left it. He feels like a spectator to his own death. A tightness around his wrist brings him back into his body. He looks up to see a silhouette gripping him, its legs flutter desperately, as fast as it can. His legs begin to move along with the silhouette's legs, and he commands them both with all the urgency he can muster to move! Move faster! Hurry!
His head breaks through the water and he inhales the air vigorously, wanting as much of it in his lungs as quickly as possible. He feels his chest still heavy with water. Violent coughing gets in the way of his hungry breaths, but he continues to suck in air between fits of coughing. He feels his body moving this time above water, he looks up at the sun and the clouds above him. It was a deceivingly beautiful day for a swim.
7
Patricia finds an abandoned beach house and sets them up for the evening. They weren't planning to stay the night but Carl is in no shape to cycle 20 kilometers back home. She pulls out three bags of chips, two egg sandwiches, four Twix bars, and three Gatorades. She always overpacked food because she didn't like to share, so she made it a habit to always bring too much to avoid feeling like she wasn't getting enough. She split the snacks, now dinner, and put it in front of a still-dazed Carl.
Carl shakes his head, "I'm not hungry."
Patricia unwraps his egg sandwich and opens a blue Gatorade. "You're going to need energy to bike back tomorrow. I won't have enough food to camp out another day." Carl breathes in deeply, shutting his eyes as the cool air fills his lungs. "I can't believe I nearly drowned. My mom would never forgive this planet for taking me." Patricia finishes her egg sandwich in under two minutes. She expended a lot of energy saving Carl. Brushing the crumbs off her jeans she says void of emotion, "2 billion people drowned when the sea levels rose. It was like the ocean was harvesting humans with the same indifference we had when we were taking all of its resources."
"Is that why this planet is so harsh? Because it's angry?" Patricia sees Carl frown through the bit of light cast by her pocket flashlight. She opens a bag of chips and begins to devour chip after chip. Her crunching echoes through the empty room and she doesn't stop until all the chips are gone. "No, this planet is very gentle," she says, licking her fingers. "It's just unpredictable. Our planet is alive and it has its own plans. It doesn't have someone going around pushing buttons, telling it how to act. And maybe on your planet nobody drowns because there's technology in place to keep an eye out for you. But here all you have is the human next to you. If I hadn't been around Carl, you would have died." Patricia begins to chug a bottle of purple Gatorade. She gets through half of it before she stops and speaks again. "This was a harrowing experience for you, Carl. But it's also your greatest encounter with our planet. You've met her now, in a real, meaningful way. Our Earth shook your hand and gave you a big, warm, somewhat rough, hello." Patricia's eyes widen and her eyebrows disappear into her bangs, "Although Carl, I don't think she likes you much since she spat you right out and gave you back to me. But since you're here, why don't you keep yourself alive and hydrated?"
Carl smiles a little, "Is that your pitch?" gray eyes meet hers. "Well, it's not bad," he says reaching for a blue Gatorade. He takes one cautious sip, wincing at its overly sweet, artificial blue flavor.
8
"What if it's about being a hero for your home planet?" Patricia throws a ball at Carl. He swats his hand at it, purposely sending it as far from him as possible. "I don't know anyone who feels any patriotic sentiments towards Earth. I mean, this place is as foreign to us as Pluto." Patricia pulls another ball out of her desk and throws it again at Carl. He rolls his eyes and lets it fall to the ground. "But that's our job, right? To plant the seeds of thought, to make your people feel like this planet is as much yours as it is ours." Carl picks the ball up from the ground and tosses it in the direction of the water cooler. "Alright, try me."
Patricia takes a deep dramatic breath, making the shape of a rectangle with her hands she says, "we see people waving at the camera as a Louis Armstrong song plays." Patricia sings, "I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you." Her hands and arms move upward towards the sky, mimicking the movement of a camera drone. "The camera moves upward, showing people on mountains and atop trees still waving. The camera moves further and further upward, out of the earth's atmosphere, and into the stars. We see the blue planet getting smaller and smaller until it is consumed by nothings but darkness. The music continues, now played out of a satellite, echoing in outerspace."
"Okay, dramatic. And might I say, expensive."
"Then out of the darkness emerges your planet. The camera moves closer and closer. We see the movement of our people mimicked by yours. Your people wave joyfully at the camera as it moves closer and closer." Patricia's is on her feet, her camera hands moving towards Carl. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat as her face inches closer to his. "And then it goes into you... looking into the parts of your human body, molecules of DNA floating around inside of you until again we fade into darkness." Carl looks into her eyes, feeling her breath on his skin. "Supers appear: No matter how far apart we are, we are made the same. Help save Earth humans." Patricia pulls away nonchalantly and plops back into her chair, "then some website to register or whatever you guys use where you live."
"Mhm, great story." Carl says as casually as he can as his heart pounds vigorously in his chest. He pulls himself up from the panda bean bag and walks to the water cooler. On his way, he catches Mindy's eye. She raises her eyebrows in an attempt to give him a knowing look then forces her face into an exaggerated wink.
9
Carl has been doing his best to avoid Mindy all afternoon. At some point she had almost crept up on him, so he ran into an elevator as it was about to close, and went all the way up to the 15th floor, then joined a meeting with accounting, went out to lunch with them, and joined another 2-hour meeting, just to make sure she wouldn't find him in case she had tailed him. Being an only child, he never took too well to teasing. His whole face would turn purple, and he would begin to hyperventilate, and he would have horrible thoughts of himself dying looking like a purple smurf, further inciting panic.
He had gone to therapy for years trying to build thicker skin. He'd even paid someone from another planet to tease him, because god forbid someone from his planet found out and teased him about it. But every session would end the same way: with Carl nearly choking on his own timid, insecure, Bashful the Purple Smurf, saliva.
The thing is, Mindy knew he thrived on caffeine. So she camped out by the one and only coffee pot in the building and waited patiently like a shark in the water, except the shark is like an older sister who pounces at every opportunity to publicly embarrass you by doing things like carrying around naked photos of you with chicken pox all over your body. Mindy is the shark sister Carl never had.
At 4:25, Carl walks into the pantry area where he sees only the back of Joel the designer's green, Bojack Horseman jacket. He doesn't even say hi, he wants to get in and out as quickly as possible. He grabs the mug with his name on it from the cupboard and quickly fills it with coffee. A few drops spill on his skin as his hands tremble. He inhales the steam released by the pot to calm down his nerves. But as he looks up, he sees her big brown eyes looking straight into him. She can't tell what she's thinking, a result of her extremely unexpressive face. Then in the loudest voice she could have possible used, the kind you should really only use in the emergencies to shout things like "HELP, I'M CHOKING ON MY SALIVA!" she says, "WELL SOMEONE'S GOT A CRUSH ON SOMEONE."
"God. Mindy. Do you want a megaphone?" Carl feels his chest tightening, "I mean, I don't have a crush on," he feels eyes looking at him, boring holes into his shirt, into his skin, into the bones beneath his muscles. "There's no someone, I don't have a," he gasps for air, feeling just as desperate for oxygen as he did when the waves were crashing down on him. "I uh, I ah.."
"Oh my god, Carl are you ok? Carl, dude you're purple. HELP! HELP! Someone help me!" Mindy screams throwing her cup of scalding hot coffee in the air. It splatters on Carl's skin, and somehow, it jolts him right out of his state of panic. "What the fuck? Mindy that was fucking hot!" He pours cold water on his arm straight out of the dispenser. He shakes his head and for reasons unclear to him, he begins to laugh. "Man, it's like this planet is fucking determined to kill me." "I just wanted to tease you Carl. I didn't know you were like, deathly allergic to jokes." She purses her lips thoughtfully, "but then it kinda makes sense. You are a really, really unfunny human."
"Is that your idea of an apology?" Carl tries to interrupt but Mindy carries on with her sudden realization. "I thought it was just a gap in inter-planetary humor but then I remember seeing footage of funny people from your planet. So I wondered if maybe, you were that kind of person. You know? The unfunny kind. But then now... now it makes sense. You're allergic to jokes. I didn't think people evolved that way, but wow that is just fascinating isn't it? You must tell me Carl. Do you carry an epi pen?"
You're serious aren't you?
Carl, after what I just saw, I would never so much as whisper a joke around you again.
You think I'm allergic to jokes?
Well...your skin is still a little bit purple.
Carl was about to give her a prepared speech about Acceptance and Empowerment: Supporting Young Men with Self-Confidence Issues, to uplift the Male Gender Specie through Group-Distanced Evolution, when he realized an allergy was far more convincing to a person like Mindy.
"Yes, I'm allergic to jokes," Carl says without blinking. Mindy gives her best sympathetic look, but she looks more like she's mildly annoyed by a little pebble in her shoe. She gives him a pat on the shoulder as she turn around and mutters, "And here I thought Patricia always teased you." As Mindy walked away, Carl quietly gasped for air, turning into deeper shades of purple with every step that grew between them.