(I don't really publish my writing on this site, but as most everyone knows I am working on a novel. My rough draft should be done this summer.)

Arian held his fist to his mouth and gnawed at the cuticles. He was pissed off looking out at the water. It had a purple tinge to it. He hadn’t voted for purple. For a long time before the purple it had just been brown, a nice toxic chemical shade of brown with an occasional orange bubbling. Then like most other areas of the shoreline, the community picked a new color, deposited the dye in an offshore buoy, and smiled with pride over their ability to change the cosmetics of life. It was a similar process to dropping one of those blue disks into the back of your toilet. However, now the toilet was much bigger and it required a town meeting to discuss color preferences. Arian kept walking along the edge, wondering how long it would take for the sand to be permanently stained with that damn purple dye. Even the wood he searched so hard for everyday was tainted.

At the Beach Artist Colony, Arian had taken on the task of organizing every piece of art he had ever created. He spent most days building shelves out of odd sections of wood that drifted to shore. Only 2000 feet from the water, the shelves stood out like a mini-prison. Even sections of wooden bars, even sections of stretched canvas. All he needed was one more scrap to finish his new section of shelving. He was by far the best artist at the colony, but before he could begin he required his work space to be perfect. Already he had spent a month at this artist colony. So far, he had produced nothing. He hoped that within the next six months he could actually be ready to start a new illustration, but he didn’t feel much of a need to push himself.

Besides the necessary communication to keep food and health properly maintained, people had become closed off from each other. The transition was so slow that no one noticed. At first people claimed to not have friends because they were just too busy. Then they didn’t bother anymore. No one had friends because friends were a pain in the ass. Relationships had fizzled into two people taking turns talking about themselves. A long time ago it was considered weird or awkward to talk to oneself. Then people realized how efficient it was. For awhile, people believed that the divorce rate was going down. Some speculated that marriages were lasting longer, but it was just the opposite. No one wanted to get married anymore. The human ability to tolerate other people was on a sharp decline. Each person in turn became increasingly obsessed with themselves. At the Beach Artist Colony there had been only one exception. Arian and Sarah.

Arian looked back up over the hill. Sarah was up there somewhere. He thought he could see a little piece of her blue shirt. Maybe he should go and see if she wanted to have some afternoon sex. He wanted to be sure about that. Of course there would be sex later, but there could be additional sex now. Sarah was probably busy. He pictured her round breasts bending over her old camera, trying to get the settings just right. There was no reason for him to think she would be working naked, but he spent most days developing scenarios about the way her body would bend and curve around daily tasks. Sarah and Arian had moved to the colony together, and with a competitive motivation she had started to produce new work right away. Arian wasn’t threatened, after all he had to build his shelves. He had a system. A process.

Someone had once told him that in the early 22nd century the colony had been difficult to get accepted into. Artists from all over would compete for the limited number of spots. Now it was only half-full of mediocre self indulgent art students.

There was something wrong with the water. He didn’t trust it. Always so still, barely licking at the shore. It was suspicious. After about a mile the air was thick and heavy and you couldn’t see anything. All the fish in this area had died a long time ago. You could pick up little pieces of their bones on the shore like you once could pick up smooth bits of glass. People made necklaces and displayed them in little glass dishes. Nearly everything found at the beach can be marketed off as romantic and sentimental. Finally he spotted a piece of purple wood. He squinted his eyes with determination, spit a section of fingernail onto the sand, and picked up the wood. The new shelf would be complete today.

It was a quiet evening as he and Sarah walked away from the shoreline. They thought about their own careers and didn’t say much to each other. Then suddenly there was a noise. A building rushing noise of water. They looked out and saw a wave that reached high up into the sky with no crest. For a moment they both thought it was beautiful. It was like a new wall to the world, one of those screens you buy to separate one area of a room from another. But this was different, this was moving fast. Arian grabbed Sarah’s hand and they ran. There wasn’t much of a plan. There wasn’t much fear. They had both always believed that in light of any natural disaster somehow they would be two of the survivors. I suppose most artists envision themselves as special. Worthy of being spared, a necessary addition to any Noah’s ark style rescue. Even illness. If the super flu came back they would survive. Arian was most likely a reincarnated version of some bird god, so in theory he couldn’t fall victim to a virus that starts in birds. Or maybe that means he would be more likely to get it. In that case he was convinced there would be some other form of divine intervention on his behalf.

They kept running. He thought he could hear the splintering of his shelves in the distance. All of his organization was dissolving under the force of a damn purple wave. At the front gates of the community, they climbed into an emergency shuttle vehicle. It’s computer voice announced warnings, about being patient, and not letting the stress of any disaster situation increase your heart rate to a dangerous level. Despite the fact that everything was being destroyed, they felt relatively calm. The vehicle moved quickly away on an invisible track. Some beacon sending out a signal in some place they knew nothing about was directing them to whatever safe area they were supposed to be waiting in. They held hands in the shuttle. In her comforting voice Sarah leaned in close and said she was sorry about his shelves. Arian tried to keep it out of his mind, though he wasn’t that upset about starting all over. The shelves hadn’t been perfect. He could rearrange them, maybe there was a better layout.

Neither of them had really considered the possibility that most everyone in the world was dying from some form of natural disaster. It was as though the earth had just grown tired of the whole damn species. It was purging itself in every way it could think of. A Tornado touched the trees and winged them away in the distance. The vehicle scanned ahead and then stopped moving. They just sat there waiting. Were they supposed to move forward to be sure that they would survive? Was this one pocket left in the world where they would be unharmed?

With no real climax they reformed the seats into a bed and laid down together. The car must have stopped for a reason. Fate was telling them to stay where they were. It had gotten late, and it was past Sarah’s self-imposed bedtime. With surges of nature shaving the earth clean all around the vehicle, Sarah and Arian had their normal nightly sex and went to sleep.

The next morning there wasn’t much left. Everything was purple and there weren’t even any dead bodies hanging around. They didn’t know anyone to mourn, and couldn’t think of anything to be worried about. All the food production was done through solar powered machines, and all of that was automated. Quite simply, they were the survivors. They climbed out of the shuttle and walked back toward the Beach Artist Colony. Since they were the only members now, they decided to change the name. They weren’t sure what the new name was yet, just that there would be a change. Arian looked at the section of beach that had been his. It wasn’t there anymore, water covered it. Water that was seemingly less purple than the day before. Amazingly, even though there was no organization, Arian sat down and began his very first painting in over three years. Sarah took pictures of the stained land to put in some historical documentation piece. She casually considered that maybe now they should have a baby.
The End.