Why Are You So Purple?

It started off as an ordinary day in the Smurf Village for Empath Smurf when he was touring the village, observing things going on while Papa Smurf was busy working on an experiment with Brainy in his laboratory. And then he visited Dabbler and Medic in the infirmary. "Just the Smurf we were expecting to see," Dabbler said as Empath entered.

"What's going on that would require this smurf's attention?" Empath asked, curious.

"It's Jokey, Empath," Dabbler said. "He's got this skin condition that's smurfing very hard to treat, and I was wondering if you would know what to smurf about it."

"Let this smurf see how serious this problem is with Jokey," Empath said.

Dabbler took Empath to an area in the infirmary where the curtain was drawn to give Jokey some privacy. There Empath saw that Jokey's blue skin looked like it was peeling off, and underneath he was all purple. Jokey also didn't look like he was feeling well.

"Hi, Empath," Jokey greeted. "Not exactly a smurfy sight, isn't it?"

"This smurf has seen worse," Empath said. "However, this smurf needs to know what happened to you that's making your skin peel to make you look purple underneath."

"You know what happened six years ago in the Smurf Village while you were away, Empath?" Jokey said. "Well, that was the time that we were smurfed with the Purple Smurf disease. Lazy was the first to contract it when he was smurfed by a purple fly out in the forest, and then he smurfed it to every Smurf from that point on, first by him smurfing Hefty in the tail, then by smurfing Clumsy in the tail, and so on and so on. We would have been completely smurfed by this disease if we had not found out that it was tuberose pollen that would smurf a Purple Smurf back to normal."

Empath touched Jokey and used his minds-eye to scan him. "This doesn't appear to be a relapse of that particular disease, Jokey. It's more like you've coated yourself in purple paint...and an indelible paint at that."

"Yeah, one of my jokes that backfired on me," Jokey groaned. "Sometime after the Purple Smurf disease, I decided to smurf some fun, so I smurfed into Handy's workshop and paint myself all purple and start acting like a Purple Smurf. Boy, every Smurf was smurfing like crazy, thinking I was going to smurf them purple again. Brainy was so scared he kept smurfing that we need to smurf the tuberose pollen, and after everyone got smurfed into their own houses, I just simply razzed them all, made them smurf like total idiots."

"This smurf can understand that you were simply playing a harmless prank on your fellow Smurfs, Jokey," Empath said. "So what went wrong with this one?"

"I went wrong with what I didn't smurf about the paint, Empath," Jokey said. "While I was smurfing back home laughing, thinking now it's time to smurf a good bath, Handy smurfed out of his workshop wondering who smurfed his purple paint, 'the indelible paint that never smurfs off'. That was when I smurfed out that the joke was on me and that I was going to smurf purple forever."

"So what happened after that, Jokey?" Empath asked.

"Handy smurfed out that it was me, and smurfed me over to Papa Smurf's, where I confessed the whole thing, and was asking him if he could smurf something that would resmurf the purple paint from me," Jokey said. "All he could smurf me was this blue cream that I would have to smurf on my skin so I could look as if I have smurfed back to my own skin color. But it's hard to keep smurfing on the cream all the time, so I used some blue paint to cover my skin, and now it's starting to peel."

"There isn't much that we can smurf for Jokey's skin, Empath," Medic said, shrugging.

"I don't like smurfing like this forever, Empath," Jokey said, sounding like he was going to weep. "Please help me smurf back to normal, if you can."

"This smurf will try to restore you, Jokey," Empath said. And then he touched Jokey again, and this time focused all his mental energies into healing Jokey. After a short while, Dabbler and Medic noticed that Jokey's purple skin was now its normal blue tint again.

"Wow, now that's amazing," Medic said, looking stunned.

Empath handed Jokey a mirror so he could look at himself. "Hey, not bad! I can smurf myself being blue once again! I don't know how I can ever thank you for smurfing that, Empath!"

"Just give yourself a bath and you should be fine, Jokey," Empath said, smiling.