"Now then, what is your name?"
The shrew hummed into his ear.
"I don't want my name to slander my new life. But what more can I do? If I tell her my name, She'll return me knowing the coming value on my name."
His thoughts thundered, in his big head.
"Alright, I'll tell you mine first,"
She interrupted his trains of thought.
He looked upwards towards the shrew.
"My name is, Violet Calamity."
She closed her eyes gently, signaling a snarky sarcastic reveal.
"What kind of name is that?"
He griped.
Violet huffed, crossing her arms.
"What kind of name is that? You should feel blessed that your in my presence little fella. Don't you know about the great Violet Calamity?"
He narrowed his eyes.
Shaking his head, he slumped back against the seats.
"I'm not aloud to hear much news.
Big brother thought it was toxic."
Violet shuffled uncomfortably around in her seat. That was when he began to notice what she actually looked like. For the few minutes they've been sitting in the itchy rosemary seats, he hadn't got a clear look at her. Her form began to come into fruition. Violet was a heavier woman, with a thin face, her skin being of mixed Native American decent and wearing a navy coat with far two many pockets. She also wore a strangely made hat with visible sew lines.
"Must have made it herself"
He thought silently.
Violets' clawing jade eyes chewed into his lies. Her hanging bruise colored bangs shuffled against a snipped sea held in a tiny ponytail. She quietly stared back at him, trying to think of something for a reply.
Her body shifted more as it slowly became a little more tired.
She sighed,
"Well then little guy, it seems though we have been here an hour, on these rosemary seats. I have not learned anything about you not even your name."
"My name is Arion."
The boy quickly spat hoping that Violet wouldn't hear it.
"Arion? That's a wonderful name."
Violet gleamed, softly touching his hand on the table. Arion's mind stepped back a few moments to the thought he was thinking before.
"She doesn't know who I am?"
Arion's face lit up embracing Violet's hand.
"You don't know who I am!"
He pulled down his orange bandanna, showing his gaping front teeth.
His bright smile beamed light into Violet's eyes.
"Yes, I don't know who you are?"
Violet snickered not understanding his joyful tone. However, it was too late for Arion's serotonin rose levels higher then it had ever been.
"I'm not anyone to you!"
Arion's eyes brimmed with tears, his smile alive as ever with light.
Violet felt herself becoming more concerned by the second as the young boy ranted in about her not knowing who he was. Was it really that important to this runaway that his life never be brought up. Even as idle conversation? Truly, it couldn't have been that turbulent, so awful that he had to start anew. Heading to a new town, on an old train, with a badly planned disguise. Arion had nothing but pure ambition for his new life. It reminded Violet, that's what she had done, and she could never picture anyone else wanting the same fateful choice.
She slide out of her rosemary seat into the isle. Arion looked up surprisied still with tears running down his face.
"she's.. she's going to leave me?"
He cried in his mind. The waterworks where building against the dam that was his eye socket. Like a breaking river the tears threatened to overwhelm his dam and make him a fool.
A fool crying over a woman,
he had only told his first name.
Violet took a moment to collect herself, before sliding onto his side of the booth.
Arion felt himself unwind all anxiety her wordless act had caused, and slump onto Violets' shoulder.
"Don't leave me."
He whimpered into her navy coat with too many pockets.
Violet gently unzipped one her pockets, on her chest pulling out a handkerchief.
She kindly wiped Arion's tears away,
"I won't. You'll never have to worry about that again."
He smiled nuzzling against her fluffy coat collar. Arion closed his eyes feeling safe maybe for the first time in his life. His eyes bit by bit became stationary with closed lids. Quiet snores followed the sleeping boy everywhere he dreamt.
Violet's insatiable curiosity however got a tight grip on her throat. Sequentially she slid off his tan hat. Revealing a plume of finely brushed snuff-colored hair with the exception of a knot or two. She ran her hands through it feeling it's sorted nature.
"How sublime," Violet thought, "someone must have loved you, or did you do this yourself?"
She went throughout his hair, untangling the bigger knots one by one. Until she reached the end. It was awful. Nothing compared to his finely brushed top.
Ratty, and frayed, why it looked like someone had taken a rusty knife to his hair, and made a dirty cut.
"A knife."
Violet repeated under her tongue.
"A knife?"
Violet felt her repressed maternal instincts kick in, as she pulled Arion closer to her chest. She tried not become attached to anyone she assisted most of the time. Despising the thought of becoming a permanent caretaker she knew it might be something that was called for. So she held her questions back putting his hat back on. Observing every breath he took to make sure he was calm.
Violet softly separated for a second to grab a pillow from her suitcase. Her suitcase being in the relative position of under the table. Violet grumbled undoing the over complicated lock with meaningless password. Quickly, she pulled out a pillow and shoved it behind his head.
Arion smiled in his sleep, his teeth still visible with the gap. Violet hummed to herself pulling one more thing out of her noisy suitcase. A pack of playing cards.
What a good time to practice.
YOU ARE READING
The Lost Ponderosa
Historical Fiction"A Runaway by any other name" His name? He refuses to respond to it. He was born in in 1900, and was given away three years after his birth with no memory of who he was in that time. After the mess that was his childhood, He ran away. "This is the...
