Of Gunmen And Roses - Beware {On Hold}

When Daylight Comes Calling

A young boy sang in his cracking and high-pitched voice. He tried his best to remember the lyrics to a song he heard on the radio while trying to control the worn out strings, with his little calloused hands, that hardly held the puppets together. His only audience was cans full of stinking waste, the strays digging out of those and a girl.

A girl? For as long as he remembered, he had no human faces as his audience, well of course there were some dead bodies dumped there from time to time, but a girl! A living and breathing girl! She was laughing at his failed attempt to control the puppets.

Her laughter sounded as wind chimes, soft and breathy. Her small palms lightly covered her mouth that was wide open. You could easily take a peek at her front teeth or the lack of them in this case. Her blonde hair tied into two ponytails, shone in the sunlight that streamed into the otherwise dark alleyway.

"Why don't you do it properly?" Her accent very different from the one he was accustomed to.

"What?"

"Puppets"

He looked down to what the girl was pointing at.

"I make them"

The girl laughed at the boy's inability to understand her. Her breathy laugh, again resonated in the alleyway. The boy frowned at her, trying to make sense of what she was laughing at. All the excitement he had felt when he saw the girl disappeared once he realized that she was laughing at him.

"Why are you looking like this?" She tugged the sides of her mouth, mimicking the boy's expression. "Be like this!" She tugged the sides upwards, forming a smile.

"You not from here" the boy spoke in his best possible accent.

The girl's eyes shone. She understood what he asked her. "I'm from Belmont."

"Bel what? Where this is?"

"Western Australia"

"Austr? what?"

"Hmm, looks like you are poor at English. Do you go to school?"

"School? what that?"

"What is your name?"

He took some time to understand her. "Antonio" he answered in his thick Italian accent.

"Where are your parents? Papa? Mama?"

"Papa work there." He pointed towards the run down building visible at the end of the alleyway.

"Mama?"

"Mama? Who mama?" His frown deepened further.

She found his frowning face turning funnier. She started laughing at him again. He ignored her and began packing his puppets up. He wanted to get away from her. His father's warning ringing in his ears."Stay away from strangers, especially the pale ones." She was exactly like that. 

Soon, he heard a strange sound, that startled him. The girl's face was red,  she was breathing heavily. Antonio dropped the puppets at once, not caring about the string that snapped as he dropped them. He rushed over to her side trying to figure out what to do. The girl was bent over trying to catch her breath. He did not know what to do, so he put one hand gently over her throat and the other on her back. Before he could do anything, hurried footsteps echoed in the alley.

"Mistress Portia! Mistress Portia! Mistress Por-- you! Leave Mistress alone! What you trying to do!"

Antonio looked up to see who it was. A police officer and a lady dressed in the most beautiful clothes he had seen all his life. They saw Portia's face that was red from the choking incident and concluded that Antonio was trying to strangle her.

"You rouge! You dare to lay a hand on our mistress? You dare touch her with your dirty hands! You dare touch the clothes she's wearing!" The woman pushed away Antonio's hand which he did not realise was still there. He hardly understood what the lady said. When she said clothes, he looked down and noticed what the girl was wearing. The dress she wore looked quite expensive but was now sporting a stain where his hand was.

"Officer!"

"Sì"

"Arrest this boy!"

"Sì--I mean yes ma'am" the officer grabbed the boy's arm and began pulling him out of the alleyway. "She die--help!" Antonio tried explaining the woman but the officer slapped him hard, shutting him up. "Boys like you should be locked up as soon as you are born! Your bloody parents were also tired of you, no wonder you're on the streets."

By now, Portia had begun to calm down. She tried gesturing to the woman to stop the officer. "Mistress are you alright? Here, have some water! Has he hurt you somewhere? That scoundrel!"

"Nerissa! What did you do!" Portia voiced. Hoarseness still evident in her voice.

"Mistress he tried to strangle you! Why did you run? Your mother will punish you if you do this again!"

"What did you do Nerissa! He was trying to help me!" She tried running after the officer. She took a step forward but was off the ground by the next. "Put me down! Don't take him!" She shouted, but everyone was too busy to listen to a little girl's plea. All the kicking and hitting was in vain. In the end, she was sat down in the gondola that waited for them, reminiscing about the boy who was in trouble because of her.