[Weekly Challenge] Purple

Peter was dead way before his time. Thankfully, nobody had gone and told him about it. He was six at the time, a rather impressionable child with trusting blue eyes and dreams of making it big in the world someday, like a fireman. There was no tragic accident that led to his demise, just a child in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Lightning strikes were not very common ways to die, but any person ever caught outdoors in a thunderstorm has experienced the creeping fear of it. Peter was no exception. It was a particularly vicious storm, and little Peter was running as fast as his short little legs could take him, headed for the only place he could think of that was safe... home.

His hair was wet and his clothes were wet. He wiped the hair away from his eyes as he ran, his breathing ragged and his side hurting. It was then that he felt odd, like little spiders crawling over his body. That rather disconcerting feeling ended rather quickly though. The CRACK! of lighting breaking the bones of his body, hurling him a good fifteen or so meters away with the smell of burning flesh had a way of getting rid of it.

It was a week later when his parents decided that their child wasn't coming back, having spent the entire week out in a beachside vacation, carefuly making sure that there was a weeks worth of milk and cereal by the table. And so they decided to make a new baby. New babies were fun to make anyway.

Little peter was dead for a week. It was the smell that woke him up, no longer the strangely delicious pork chop like smell after the lightning hit, but rather the stinky smell of his pet mouse, when it decided to go to sleep for a long, long time.

Peter figured that going to sleep for a long, long time was rather un-fun. So he stood up. It felt strange to be all soft, and crispy on one part of his back, but it was okay.

----

Peter was now officially 30, his corpse-like body had matured into a rather handsome zombie, and his near religious applications of formaldehyde solutions helped keep him from falling apart. He was a smart lad, learning that one could earn money from doing work that nobody liked. He never needed to eat anymore, nor did he need to sleep, or even go potty.

Imagine if you will, the world's perfect worker! Peter was like that, an endless fountain of productivity. His work ethic was fantastic, and his ability to maintain output levels 24/7 drove him higher and higher to the company ladder, until he became... a partner.

Being a partner was interesting, Peter concluded, one had things that people called benefits. He had life insurance, which he really didn't need, discounts at restaurants, which he never really dined in, and "special" considerations in little strip clubs which never really quite interested him... due to a certain lack of bodily functions. As such, Peter became rather bored.

It was times like these that Peter spoke to himself.

"Well, that's it." he said, as he sat down on his big swivel chair, "I've managed to reach high above the others in the corporate ladder. I've managed to somehow keep on living when by all means I should be dead." his eyes narrowed. "I have nothing to exist for."

He sat there, brooding, no breath to breakt he silence, as his eyes roamed falling on a newspaper. NEW CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENCY COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK, it blared.

Something stirred within the deep recesses of Peter's mind.

"That's it!" he stood holding a finger up in the air in a cliched pose of sudden genius, "I'll become president!"

"This is exactly what this country needs!" he paced back and forth, musing, "A president who will WORK for the country, a leader who has no mundane needs. I will not sleep, nor eat, nor waste my money on booze, fatty foods and movie star whores!" he grinned a dead man's grin.

And in the coming months, the country was taken by storm! Little Peter, the dead boy who worked his way up to the top of the corporate world, was running for president!

And yet, all was not well. Peter's ratings sank, nobody knew how to identify with a dead man.

"What I need is something... anything..." he pondered, his deceased fingers clicking on his mouse, "I need a symbol... something that they will instantly remind them of me."

It was then that he stumbled upon the colors of politcs. From firey reds of hard work and idealism, to the yellows of unity and peace, to the blues of freedom... but nothing struck his fancy.

"These are not the colors for me." Peter said, looking over the colors in his mind. Black for protest and White for mourning... "I need a new color, one that the world remembers but has never used..."

Purple. The color of emperors and mourning priests. It was perfect. Peter had his name changed immediately, and campaign materials flowed from the printing presses in the color he had chosen...

"I am Purple!" he yelled into the mike, to the cheers of thousands upon thousands of fans, "I am a dead man, yes, but a dead man who will make your lives better! I died, but do not let the stop you from living a second, better life! I need no sleep! I need no food! I need no sex! Let me bury your fears! Vote me! Vote me!"

His campaign worked, Purple, had won the hearts and the minds of the common man, his administration was demanding, but fair. He could not be bribed, he had no vices, he did not sleep. He was, by all means, the perfect president.

But it was not to be. Purple sat atop a float in a parade, purple streamers flapping in the breeze. The economy was in an upswing, and people were happy. The sun shone brightly down on the leader of the country, his pale face in a dead man's grin even as he waved to his constituents.

----

"And that is how this came to be," Purple said, looking down at the child beside him, "How we became the only country to be successfully ruled by a zombie president."

The boy watched him in reverence in awe. This was Purple, the grand Last President, looking a tad more mummified than the pictures, but still there, talking to him.

"And this was five thousand years ago?" the boy said, adjusting his hoverchair.

Purple nodded, even as he leaned back in his preservation chamber, "And it all seemed like it just happened yesterday."

---

Madness borne out of desperation lead me to writing this story. Yes it is strange, and yes I'm aware that its probably a far cry in terms of quality compared to the prior stories I've written. I'm trying to shake of the fact that my imagination falls to bits whenever I write under pressure... well, I hope this makes sense to those who read it.