114. Purple

One story has purple coming first from mollusks, an oceanic ink distilled by soft-centered stone-creatures. Once in the hands of humans, purple became grand, staining garments of monarchs, aristocracy, and venerated holy ones.

It came to mean sorrow and penance, too, a mix of martyrs' red-and-blue.

Purple still bleeds into skies, is the color of some eyes according to other eyes. Its etymology owes a syllable or two to a confusion of r's and l's in English, a rippling of purpose on the surface of phonemes.

Look for the nearest purple stain, from grape or dye or something else. What do you think? What do you think of it, purple? Purple. Murmur purple; murmur it in your own language.