Zeffilax

On April 1, 2035, in Denver, Colorado, Arthur Iris discovered a new color.

Well—not discovered, exactly. Rather, during the course of his research on mantis shrimp, he devised a mechanism to mimic the optic functions of these creatures, which use twelve color receptors to form their visible light spectrum, whereas humans use only three. This prototype receptor lens was far from perfect, but it gave Iris a window into a vivid new color which had literally never been seen by human eyes.

Once he made this groundbreaking advancement, the first order of business, of course, was to monetize it.

The day after his first successful trial, Iris took his artificial receptor to the United States Patent and Trademark Office and staked his claim on his technology, and in effect, his new color.

He called it zeffilax.

In spite of the naysayers who dismissed his work as an April Fools’ joke, Iris proceeded to offer open trials to anyone who wished to try his new receptor lens. All who beheld zeffilax for themselves were astounded, dumbfounded. Yet none could agree on how exactly to describe what this new color looked like to those who hadn’t experienced the trial; it was like trying to explain the taste of salt.

Some said it was bold and bright like a misfit sun. Others called it subtle and aesthetic like the color of the wind. One philosopher claimed that zeffilax lifted her mind to a higher plane—not the beauty of heaven, nor the brashness of hell, but the rigor of purgatory. Placidity and puissance in one combined.

Soon, Iris had signed a few contracts and was mass-manufacturing contact lenses that contained the augmented receptors necessary to perceive zeffilax. He raked in revenue by the millions as a world ever clawing for newness grasped onto this new color as if to transcend the apparent blandness of its present rainbows.

But of course, merely perceiving zeffilax would never be enough. Iris managed to patent not only the receptors, but the formula for manufacturing zeffilax dye. Once the majority of society were wearing his lenses, he sold limited usage rights to business moguls in the fashion industry; the graphic design industry; the food industry; the advertising industry; the publishing industry; the real-estate industry; the automobile industry; the social media industry; even secret government agencies. Within five years, Arthur Iris was the richest man alive.

Eventually, a simple laser surgery was devised to replace the lenses, which became as regular an operation as juvenile immunizations. Zeffilax, then, had become a permanent part of the human world, utilized by businesses to catch the eye; by insurrectional factions to raise up on flags and symbolize a new world order of new, superior ideologies; by painters and film directors to evoke complex emotions which had previously been inaccessible. The world had been changed by one mantis shrimp.

All this would have made Arthur Iris a happy man, had it not been for two things.

Firstly, less than eight years after his discovery of zeffilax, another scientist uncovered some of the secrets behind the unique color receptors of dragonflies, and stumbled upon a way to harness another new color, this one even bolder and more aesthetically pleasing than zeffilax.

And secondly, his wife and children were incurably colorblind.