Urbane Caveman

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Chapter (16): Urbane Caveman 

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The lights of the hanging candelabras died, murmurs and tinkling goblets were hushed and the velvet curtains were slowly unfolded to the east and to the west. The audience applauded as the shadows on the theater stage were revealed; a male pianist with a pointy nose, and a lone woman on a cubic seat, her face lowered and averted in the remaining dark, and feet neatly assembled under a silk dress.

 

Her crown was a bundle of lustrous black hair and her complexion, as her head tilted under the spotlight, was lightly powdered white around the small cherry red lips.

 

Fingers waltzed along the piano keys, but her voice was more delicate. Beautifully melancholic.

 

Water noisily trickled down my dry throat. Not cold enough. I wished there had been two dices of ice, but outdoors was icy enough. The base of my glass clinked as it met the table, and I could have sworn her silver eyes glanced at mine as a slight smile twitched in the corners of her lips.

 

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"Yeslamo (thanks)." I humbly said without looking up at the skinny waitress.

 

"Nice haircut." She faked interest before her high-heels danced to the next round table behind. My cheeks slightly blushed around the uneven strands of blue-black. Aseel and my younger sister sniggered. I should have let that elf completely shave her pretty hair.

 

"Adam?" Aseel decided to ask after a minute of hesitation, "You and the doctor talked about the Madam's lodge before we left. Have you been here before?... Do you remember any of this?" her eyes behind the glasses motioned the oddly adorned walls of the hall.

 

"Akeed La," Adam shifted to sit more comfortably, "not likely after the milkshake you practically surprised us an hour ago."

 

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"I-Is everyone alright?" Aseel loudly asked, still trying to realize what had just happened. My eyes explored the upside down world inside the vehicle.

 

"We're all good, thank you." I answered for the tangled tongues. A blood stream trickled upwards against my forehead, but I was in one piece healthwise. I could smell rasped rubber and gasoline dripping from the exterior of the vehicle.

 

"How come your driving skills fell from worse to worst?" Adam commented, his arms quietly crossed around his upturned figure. "I-It was not my fault, mashi!? You saw how that maniac suddenly stopped in the middle of the road." I was getting a headache and the other heads around me were getting redder by the minute. If we stayed like this our brains might turn over.

 

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A fancy-clothed couple passed by my chair, the man tilting his chin at me and his wife exposing half a grin. I clogged both sides of my head with my palms, "Does patchy hair grab so much attention?" I groaned.

 

"Have more faith, Jad." Adam said, comfortably but watchfully seated across the round table, "It could have been worse." His sarcasm was starting to sound like completely normal talk. Madam Kamar fell silent as the slow piano chords borrowed the spotlight, her lips curved in another smile and her direction seemed to aim at…me again? Or was it Adam she had been trying to reach? I glanced at the boy to my right but he did not seem to return her smiles. Oh, I know the answer to this one…Adam would mysteriously turn out to have known her before. That wouldn't be surprising, really. Since almost everyone I met on the road seemed to think of his face as familiar.

 

"I… had a feeling that truck ahead was suspicious." Aseel guiltily said glancing down at her feet, the memory of her uncertainly narrowing her eyes at the frozen truck and our car zigzagging in the fog flashed back, "But I did not guess elves until too late."

 

"Eeh…" Nara griped to herself, "Those mean, nasty elves!" The vanilla ice-cream slowly melted around the waffle cone in her hand.

 

My sister was disturbed by the reminiscence, and Aseel pursed her lips, casually rubbing the other's shoulder for comfort, but none mentioned my heroic rescue, and yes protecting Nara's hair was considered a rescue.

 

 

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The sound of sharp metal scissors frightened her as they almost sliced around the blue-black edges. She screamed but was unable to defend the fringes of her crown, dangling against gravity.

 

"Hey!" I fidgeted in my glued place, "Hey!" I would move, but none of the others could either, thanks to Dr. Farfoor's emergency seatbelts. Oh, and yelling while your head turned over later proved to be unhealthy.

 

"Don't fight it, child." A tiny voice said, two other similar voice giggling, "We only want some of your hair…this dark, silken, pricey hair."

 

I breathed in and helplessly yelled, "Don't touch her!" a flash of white swept the interior of the car, the small creatures scurrying out through the windows. I curled my fingers and looked up at them with a smile of admiration. I was becoming cool. The elves seemed honest, nothing was battered except a lock of my hair, but that alone would have been psychological harm to my sister.

 

 

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"but he's right, Jad." Aseel agreed.

 

"What?"

 

"Adam's right, it could have been worse." She adjusted her glasses before the weary eyes, "We were in luck they weren't collectors of other things."

 

"Other things like what?" Nara said in a whispery tone while a light-hearted melody followed the last stanzas of Madam Kamar's song. Aseel scooted closer under the dimmed lights, and both girls looked as if they were enjoying a ghost story on a camping trip. I clogged Nara's ears with my palms and she instantly removed them, shooting me a frown, "Jad, I'm not scared! I'd know these things from books even if you block my ears." I retreated. She had a point.

 

"Um, well," Aseel continued, "those elves could have been collectors of human organs."

 

I grimaced in disgust, "Human…?" running along with the whispery level. Aseel nodded.

 

"Eyeballs, fingers, toes, noses, ears, tongues, hearts, stomachs, livers--"

 

"Or testicles." Adam matter-of-factly added. Aseel, Nara and I turned blankly towards him, the awkward silence not affecting his self-esteem.

 

"Yeah, but," I winced, "They only went for me and Nara's hair, how do you explain that?" "Nara's hair and mine." My sister corrected.

 

"Um, I heard elves in Underside are only interested in fresh human parts," Aseel uncertainly explained, "I guess dark, newly-washed hair is one of their preferences." An entire total of five hours in a car, magical battles and upside down elves in between; I had a feeling my hair wasn't precisely 'fresh'. In fact, I was routinely proud to live five days away from the friendless cold showers Nara indulged in daily.

 

"It's melting!" she whined, barely able to stop the runny vanilla with the tip of her tongue. The thoughts back then must have tortured her, I internally grinned. She was probably considering the valid idea of air germs having already consumed her ice-cream. Aseel suggested more licking but Nara's response was just as I guessed, "I can't. Do you know how many millions of germs are all over it by now?" she rhetorically asked.

 

There was a similar case with Miriam on the chair next to me, but Aseel had already resolved it in the pit of her stomach. The long curls of hair were scattered around her head on the table like petals of a golden-yellow rose. Watching her pale eyelashes flutter as she slept was always soothing. We were all worn-out from the trip but Aseel and Miriam were the only sleepless ones in the car. The first was driving and the latter found watching snowy hills better than snoozing.

 

Nara's whining about the melted ice-cream was beginning to sound like a persistent morning alarm.

 

"Nara," I sighed, "Just throw it away in any disposer. I'm sure there are a few around here."

 

"I can't!" she whispered loudly, "It's embarrassing while the show's still running, and with all the peop--"

 

"Ya rabbi, just give it to Adam." Aseel impatiently suggested snatching the chaotic cone from Nara's sticky grip, "Seriously, Adam, get it over with." Adam's slightly widened eyes made Aseel feel awkward, but she would not give up her advertising, "It'll be fun…I'm sure you've never tasted one of those in your life." Adam tilted the cone suspiciously, almost like a caveman who'd never seen a lamp before, but only this caveman seemed more civilized, without the messy beard and fleece clothing, with slightly unruffled white hair and piercing blue eyes, a firm, tall stature…oh, and charming, irresistible-- Okay, I'm done.

 

When my attention was refocused away from Adam's splendor Aseel was briefly instructing on the licking technique. My eyebrows automatically went up. Our caveman really did lack ice-cream experience, but he had no problem swirling his tongue around the streams of vanilla. I secretly blushed, his stubborn kiss flashing through.

 

"I'm enjoying this whole setting, really." Aseel groaned, her head tumbling on the table, "but I'm exhausted," me too, I thought, I wish I could go home, "especially after the last flip." She meant the literal flip of our car.

 

"That wouldn't have occurred if it weren't for black hair." Adam indicted without our eyes meeting.

 

"Excuse me!?" Nara crossed her arms. Hold it together, Jad. I took an invisible deep breath. His last sentence was a deliberate attempt of exasperation, and a great discovery of mine was that exasperation simply requires 'ignoration'…. Another great discovery was that I should stop narrating because I failed at making rhymes.

 

"Well," Aseel rolled her eyes to calculate, "Part of it is technically your fault, Jad. If your hair was brown we wouldn't have been ambushed."

 

"What!?" I scrunched my nose at her, "Okay you know what?" I turned to the source of my distress; his callous blue eyes, "Y-You know, Adam?"

 

Nara innocently raised her hand in concord, as if her hair was of a yellowish shade, "I agree with Aseel--" "Shut up, twig." She frowned at my use of old nicknames. Why didn't I think of it before?

 

"You know…Adam," I repeated, my eyes twitching as I tried to keep the last bits of my cool, "Everyone of us has a reason to be here, especially you…." I glanced at Aseel and back at his blue eyes, "I'm not quiet sure what Aseel's reason is, but we are all in this together, so you can't really say--"

 

"Um, Jad," Aseel smiled uneasily, "you're going to start another unnecessary clash--" "yeah, but, he f*****g started it." Why was it always me that had to calm down?

 

"Well," Adam sighed composedly pretending to scan the menu, "that's what human beings do. They start wars." What the f**k is up with the use of words? Was he human or not in the end? I clenched my fists in the dark below the draping table-cloth, slamming them against the table as my legs shot up from the chair. Surprisingly, everyone around me flinched except Miriam. Her table-nap was not disturbed.

 

"Would you like to know something about the human race?" my voice kicked up a pace, "They don't sit where you are pokerfaced and sarcastic while half of their memories are missing."

 

"Jad, you're making a scene!" Aseel nervously whispered, tugging on my blouse but I would not sit back down until the visible veins along my pale neck became less inflamed.

 

"Humans," I continued, "do not even eat ice-cream the way you do." Adam briefly eyed the half-eaten cone I pointed at. Nara's melted dessert had nothing to do with anything, but I just kept talking.

 

"Jad, I take it back, alright? The car accident was no one's fault. Just Calm. Down!" Couldn't she have said that while ago, before agreeing with Adam? Not that it mattered what side Aseel took by then. I had already reached my limits, and my back stiffened even more, you couldn't make me sit down even if you voodoo-doll controlled me.

 

I recalled the day I took a glimpse at the snow-white Husky dog resting underneath the Jasmine vine, "Oh, now it's no one's fault? If I hadn't met him, none of this s**t would have happened."  My hands were thrown in the air to motion his slightly wincing blue eyes and before I was aware of my rudely increasing voice, the entire hall -including the Madam on stage- were silently turned in my direction, "We wouldn't have had to go through a sickening long ride, or-or tolerate irrational magic doctors," I was talking about my own limited tolerance, "and worst of all, we could have been spared being mistaken for wanted lunatics on the run…!" my eyes realized those focused on me and I would normally melt in my shoes, but my face was already flushed and their unified silence and awkward states could not be worse than the action flick I had been drgged into for the last three days.

 

A voice that seemed to have expected my last sentence reached my ears, "Well, now." The beautiful singer on stage was the breaker of the silence, requesting a spotlight above my head as her long fingers snapped. I flinched not because of the sudden light, but probably because I might have gotten us in deeper trouble, "Ladies and gentlemen," her voice elegantly announced, "These children are our new heroes." A contagious applause flowed from the tables in the back spreading to every corner, some exchanging smiles of appreciation and others nodding in relief. I slowly sank in my seat as I tried to contain the scene before almost losing track of commonsense. 

Author's Note

What do you thinkkkk? Critisism is muuch appreciated. Constructive ofcourse.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

The story is getting more entertaining. Adding new problems like hair and new characters. A fast pace chapter. No weakness. Just great story.
Coyote