Colors: Purple

“So why are you dressing me up?”
“If we are to learn about the color purple, we need to dress up!”
“You don’t make any sense.”
“Just wait till you see.”
I held my tongue.  It was just a slip of the tongue, I know.  But still, how could I understand whom I was dressing up as if I didn’t know what articles of clothing she was piling on me?  I hadn’t dressed down, no.  She was placing all of these things on me as if I was a living mannequin.
We were at my place.  Partly because I knew where everything was in my small apartment.  Mostly because she had barged in there like she owned the place with a heavy box in her hands.  She brought in the scent of the outside, of the freshly fallen rain and the scent of strawberries, still there yet faint, and the scent of mud and wet earth.  It mixed together with the clean, “fresh air” scent my maid used on my laundry and the linen scented candles.
It was clean in my apartment until she came in with her disjointed jazz solo.  She dropped the box on my foot, hence why I know how heavy it is, and I hopped about in pain until I fell onto my couch.  And there was cloth all over the floor, in places I can’t tell.  I dared not move in case I slipped on whatever silk whatnot she pulled out of that box of hers.
Well, it could be a chest for all I know of.  It’s heavy and wooden, and I am pretty sure it left some sort of mark onto my bare foot when it hit me.  And my toes are cold against the tile floor.  I know that the couch is behind me, with just enough space between myself and it for her to slip on through between the two.
The box-chest sat on the couch and she would rummage in it and throw stuff everywhere.  I could hear the fluttering of cloth hitting the ground or the couch or my little side table.  There were some dull thuds, like something heavier than cotton or silk hitting the ground.
She brushed up against me time and time again during her rummaging.  I know she didn’t mean it, but it was precarious when it came to standing still amongst all this clutter while she was nudging me with her body.  She was muttering to herself, soft and fast.  It was impossible for me to make it out just what melody her song was saying when it was that quiet.
I felt something large and heavy encircle me like a blanket or a tarp.  I struggled to maintain my balance as she navigated my head and my arms through their respective holes.  I popped my head out of the hole and she shoved something rather heavy and metallic on my head.  I almost lost my balance as it tilted me sideways.  She was on her tiptoes, straightening things out on my head.
“There!  You’re done!”
“And just what is this?”  I stood still, using my hands to grasp at the material draping me.  It was softer than I had expected but it wasn’t quite like silk.
“Today I dressed you up in one of my old costumes.”
“Costumes?”
“Yeah, I’m really big into Halloween and the masquerade balls and all that.  And I was trying to figure out in my head how to explain to you what the color purple was.  And I thought of costumes!”
“It really isn’t making much sense.”  One of my hands went to the metallic band around my head.  I couldn’t tell what kind of metal it was, only that it was cold and thing and it felt like it weighed a million pounds.
“So, what do you think you are dressed up as?”
Metallic headband and a large dress.  “It’s either some really bad 80’s hair metal get up or I’m supposed to be royalty.”
“Well, what kind of royalty?”
“A prince?  Since the crown is so small.”
I could hear here pouting as she spoke.  “I didn’t have a bigger crown, okay?  It’s supposed to be a queen’s crown.”
“You dressed me up as a queen?”
“It was the only royal costume I had!  And besides, you can imagine it’s a king costume.”
“I’ll try.”
“Besides, I knew it!”  She giggled in front of me.  “I knew that purple would look good on you!”
“So this dress is purple?”  I fingered the fabric.
“Uh-huh!”
“So, purple is royalty?”
“Kind of.”  She turned away from me, and her echoed across the sparsely furnished room.  “Back during the Dark Ages, it was hard to make purple dye.  So it was expensive.  So nobles and kings in Europe went and had it because it showed off their status.”
“Is that true?”
“I think?”  Her voice was muffled like she had brought her hand up to her mouth.  I heard the faint whispers of a yawn hidden behind a fist.  “I like a little mystery, don’t you?”
“Mystery?”
“Yeah.  For some reason, purple is also associated with mysteries and the unknown.  It’s associated with the twilight time.  When artists tend to depict a landscape at twilight, it tends to be swathed with purple.”
“I see.”
She bent down, I could hear the leather boots creaking as she did.  “It really is quite fascinating.  There’s like an association with colors that is true because of history and all that.”
“Interesting.”
“I have to show you more sometime.”  She bent back up and turned towards me.  “Well, I guess I have to clean up.”
“I heard.”  I smiled.  Or, well, tried to smile at least.  I liked hanging out with Crystal.  I didn’t like how she ended up almost ruining everything she touched.  In this case, it was my apartment.
With little difficulty, I took off the dress and the crown and placed them where I thought the box was.   I missed only a little, hitting the edge of the box with the crown.  I helped her clean as best I could.  It was hard considering she moved about a little frantically like she was in some great hurry.  She also didn’t talk.
Talking and Crystal went hand in hand.  Yellow was enthusiastic and energetic, and if Crystal was represented by yellow I was surprised she wasn’t talking up a storm like she normally did.  What mysteries did Crystal have then?  Or, was it even a mystery?  She had yawned, perhaps she was just a little tired.
“Is that it for purple?”
“Yeah.”  She yawned again, this time it was unmuffled.  She stepped next to me with her boots and dumped a whole pile of cloth into the box.  “I want to look at orange next.”
“Orange?”
I could hear the smile in her voice as she spoke.  “Yeah.  I know a good place to go to talk about it too.  I’m buying.”