Ikarus - Part VIII (fiction)

If you’d asked, Ikarus would’ve probably admitted the snakes were a bit too much. In hindsight, of course. And honestly, he still couldn’t understand why it had not worked. I mean, it sounded great in his head and what kid didn’t want to grow up to be a snake-tamer? The only teeny tiny detail he seemed to have overlooked was… well, Amber wasn’t a child and she hadn’t been for some time. It seemed she was at that incredibly dull moment in her life where she became, well, agitated whenever she saw snakes and screamed loudly, which was indeed what she did when he told her she could finally open her eyes.
‘What is this?’ she gasped, after running down several flights of stairs and slamming countless doors in his face. He could but hope that the snakes, in their cozy nest on the roof, had remained calm.
‘I thought you’d like this. It’s really quite fun and not dangerous at all. Well, not once you get the general hang of things.’
‘You said coffee.’

He had. And he’d planned to go along with that, up to a certain point. It was just, coffee always gave him a bad stomach and it was just so tedious. He wouldn’t mind a quick cup on the go, but most people seemed to stretch it on for hours. It was ludicrous.
‘But just think of all the fun things we could do instead. Like, you know how you said being stalked was the most fun thing that ever happened to you? Well, I’m sorry, but that’s just so sad. I thought we could rectify that tonight.’
This seemed to mollify her, a little, in that, she slowed down her running to a light jog.
‘Really, it’s fun, and I’ve done this a million times.’
‘You have?’ she turned her enormous honey eyes to look at him.
And perhaps it was something in those eyes that made him lie. ‘Sure, a million times. Come on.’

_{Photo by Ivy Law on Unsplash}

In theory, she knew that perhaps it wouldn’t be wise to follow him back up the staircase and unto the snake-filled roof, but then, that was in theory. Practice was a whole different matter and he had a point. She would like to tell her grandchildren some day how she’d tamed snakes. Or, you know, live long enough to tell anyone about it, really.
Ikarus, who turned out to be really rather gentle when he wasn’t hopping about the place, lowered one of the big, green ones over her and draped it around her shoulders.
‘Eh? I told you, didn’t I?’
Amber, who at the moment was having a staring contest with the beast, gave a vague grunt.
‘Is it poisonous?’ she asked, through gritted teeth, suddenly feeling all the weight of the snake over her.
‘Oh, absolutely.’

It was a good thing really that she couldn’t run right now, otherwise she would have. Kicked him somewhere hurtful, also. But as it was, she could just stand there, willing the big, green snake to play nice.
‘So what do I do now?’
Ikarus considered this for a second. ‘Um, sing?’
‘Sing what?’ Amber snapped. Well, as much as she could, which in her current position involved a very heated whisper.
‘I don’t know, anything you like,’ Ikarus said, sitting down, among the snakes and picking one up in his lap.
‘They’re not cats, you know,’ said Amber.
‘Of course I know.’
He began humming gently, to the red and brown one slithering in his arms. She didn’t recognize the tune, and although it didn’t sound particularly snakey, she tried to replicate it as best she could. There wasn’t much point in chancing it and breaking out into the chorus for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ now, was there?

---

‘I can’t believe they took the boat. Bastards!’
It was the third time Aimee yelled out into the same big nothing and it was the third time the big nothing stood silent and motionless in reply. It was getting old pretty fast, but Eric had decided it was best not to complain.
In spite of what he’d thought earlier, it turned out he could do with a little more sleep. And, as it turned out, so could Aimee. After they’d tiptoed back into the forest, they’d sat down, waiting for Barney and Lionel Wilty to wake from their slumber, so that Aimee could do whatever it was she planned on doing.
Except they fell into a bit of a slumber themselves and found themselves entangled with each other somewhere around noon, with no sight of Lionel or Barney, or indeed, the boat they’d come on.

_{Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash}

‘I thought you said you knew everything,’ Eric observed.
‘I do,’ Aimee snarled. ‘Just, you know, not all the time. They caught me off-guard.’
‘So, you think they did this on purpose? To you?’
‘Knowing my father, definitely. He wouldn’t miss a chance to pull one over on me. In fact, I believe the score on that stands two hundred thirty seven to none,’ she said miserably. ‘Hence my sitting out here in the bushes, hoping for once to catch him off guard. But no, you have to be a wuss and wake up instead and ruin the whole plan.’
‘Now now, I’m sorry your weird, scary noises in the middle of the night woke me up.’

Odd. He’d never spoken like that to anyone in his life and he wondered where on Earth it had come from. All in all, he was rather pleased with how this little experiment was turning out. Apart from the whole boat, stranded on the side of the lake thing. That had turned out rather poorly, but other than that, top notch he would say.
‘Look, I’m glad you’re pleased with yourself,’ Aimee puffed, ‘but there is a long way to go back to the house and I would rather you got up and started pushing.’
Eric turned to look at this strange, little woman. He had a feeling they wouldn’t make it back to the house, not for a long time. And he had a feeling this woman would bring more trouble into his life than he’d bargained for.
And he sighed, because it was the only thing to do, really.
‘Push what?’
She rolled her eyes, showing off a bit more white than he would’ve liked to see. Oh well. ‘The donkey, of course.’

There are moments in life when the only appropriate question is ‘what donkey?’ and this was most definitely one of those moments.
And he would’ve asked, had it not sounded so damn ludicrous when he said it in his head. So, he just followed her quietly through the trees, into a small clearing where, sure enough, a donkey stood. A distinguished, ashen gray and about a hundred years old, altogether.
‘Impressive,’ Aimee smiled.
‘What?’
‘He turns a hundred next week, actually. He was my grandfather’s.’
‘Oh, that’s sweet.’
She stopped, peered at him and laughed. ‘He’s not dead, my grandfather. No, he just left him, you know? We don’t really know where Grandfather is, at the moment.’
She shrugged and patted the donkey on his back. ‘Keith here is the best companion anyone could wish for. He carried me all the way out here, you know?’
‘Huh, so then, why do I have to push?’
‘Oh we both do. Yeah. Well, at a hundred, how much work do you expect him to do? I’m sorry to say, but Keith isn’t as strong as he once was. Come on.’
As he propped himself behind the donkey’s buttocks, Eric thought again about how swell this all was going and how he’d perhaps been a bit rushed in his conclusions. It would be a long, and by the looks of it, smelly day, indeed.

to be continued

Today's prompt was '100 year old donkey' - thank you @mariannewest :)

And thanks for reading,