The Vibrant City

There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad town; a very sad town; a town so ruinously sad that it had long forgotten its name. The inhabitants themselves lived sad, isolated lives. Long ago, a deadly plague wiped the city of all the children, and along with it, the happiness and colour. We couldn't see the bright red of an apple, nor the green leaves of the tree upon which they had grown. Then, one day, she came and everything changed. 

The sky was an unusually light shade of grey that early morning when we rose—not to our alarm clocks, but the sound of a symphony playing. Annoyed to have been awakened two hours too soon, I slipped on my robe, hobbled down the stairs, yanked open my door, and marched towards the raucous. The disturbance had awakened the entire city, and they too were making their way towards it, fretting about the noise.   The closer we came to the sound, the quieter it became.  At the time, no one stopped to think of the oddity of this; the town was more compelled to yell at the miscreant who was so rudely disturbing the peace.  The citizens stopped at the middle of the town and peering through the man in front of me, I saw a little girl bent over, humming a soft tune. There was something different about her, but I couldn't quite explain. She had something—something I hadn't seen in a very long time—something that made her seem brighter. Then, I heard it whispered through the crowd. Colour.

“Who are you?” one of the citizens demanded, a slight quiver of untrusting fear in his voice. “What are you doing here?”

The girl turned around, and smiled, a missing tooth visible. “Chakaluka, and I'm planting a flower.”

“Where are you from?”

Chakaluka didn't answer. She simply stood and skipped off, singing to herself. We parted, allowing her to pass. I stared in amazement at the ground her shoes had just left, which, for a fraction of a second, had colour as well. I blinked, sure my eyes were playing tricks, but from the whispers and mutters of those around me, I knew they had seen it too. 

For weeks, I didn't see her, and her flower didn't seem to grow. I forgot about her, returning to the regular, miserable routine. As I was walking along the grey sidewalk that blended with the grey brick walls, I noticed an old man who had fallen. No one stopped to help him up—it was not the town's way. Instead, the crowd walked around him, as if he were an invisible barrier. Suddenly, Chakaluka was at his side, trying to help him up. Too weak to do it alone, I watched in amazement as my neighbour—I didn't know her name—stopped to help. I too found myself walking over to join. Together, the three of us carried the man to his house. Another person, whose name I never knew, opened the door, and we carried him to his bed. His wife followed in close pursuit, quickly tending to her injured husband. I looked at Chakaluka, and suddenly, I knew the colour of her hair. “Red,” I said out loud, filled with the same awe as a child who had just seen a magic trick. She merely smiled, and winked before skipping off. I was smiling too.

It was incredible, how the city slowly changed under her influence. One day, she handed out fliers to everyone: an invitation all to see a talent show. Curious and eager to learn more about her, the entire town attended. To our astonishment she was not the performer, but the MC, calling upon us to showcase ourselves. The mayor was called on to do bird calls. The banker counted five million pennies in under a minute. The shopkeeper did double dutch. They were small talents, but with each act, we learned more about each other than we had ever known.

Another day, when Mrs. Tyler fell ill, we all signed the card Chakaluka made for her. Once we all sat down in the field and had a picnic that each of us contributed to. The food was warm and delicious, bringing back memories of the ones we used to have.   She taught us songs; we told her stories; one day we took a day off of work and played charades. For Raj's birthday, as I went to give him his gift, I found that the rest of the town had done the very same thing. She was changing us back to what we used to be. 

With each day that passed, we learned to love and care and we learned the colours. Slowly, the sun went from white to yellow—the same yellow of Chakaluka's shirt. The grass started to have a tinge of green that would one day match the green in her eyes. The flower was growing too, though no one seemed to water it, nor had it rain since it had been planted. It was Nina, my neighbour, who brought something to my attention—something worrisome.

“Doesn't she look faded?” Nina asked. She was talking about Chakaluka. It was true. Once, she was more vibrant than us but now we out shone her. I worried, thinking she was sick with the same plague that took the lives of our children. 

Days later, when the pink of her lips were barely noticeable, I approached her. “You're fading.”

I wanted her to tell me I was wrong; I wanted to her laugh and tell me it’s the trick of all the other colours.  To my dismay, she neither confirmed nor denied my statement. However, the look in her eye was enough for me to realize she had been expecting it. “My flower has almost finished growing” she said. She turned to leave, then paused, and looked back. “Chakaluka means vibrant energy.” 

I watched her closely the following few days. As the colour of the world became more pronounced, her own colour became less. Eventually, she was completely gone, nowhere to be seen skipping again. That day, the flower stopped growing, it's petals the colours of the rainbow.

That was all twenty years ago, and now that once sad city is the most joyous of all. Children fill the streets once more. The flower Chakaluka planted remains; untouched, unchanged. As I hear my son sing the same song I once heard her hum it dawns on me that she did not fade: she was absorbed into us. After she left, we named our city Madeenaluka: The Vibrant City 

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