I was Archibald, she was Violette
I was wearing a torn pair of old jeans,
dusty boots, a handful of steel bracelets and chains.
Sunglasses.
My broad shoulders were striped with tribal tattoos.
I was riding a beat-up bike down a bad road,
easy grip on the handlebars.
Behind me,
was Violette —
head thrown back, grinning wide,
wearing nothing but a thin floral dress
that danced in the wind like it had a life of its own.
The road stretched forever.
Left and right,
just rock and dust,
the occasional baby tornado spinning itself dizzy.
I was whistling a tune I still can’t name.
Didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered.
It was one of those moments
where the world didn’t ask for anything.
“Hey Arch’,” she yelled into the wind,
burying her grin in my hair,
“why d’you call me Poopette?”
I made a face up at the sky.
She wasn’t giving up.
“Is it like… you know,
some kind of reverse psychology thing,
because violets don’t smell like poop?”
A pause.
“Or — wait —
is that even a thing?
I mean, people say doesn’t smell like roses, right?
Not violets.”
Still nothing from me.
Clouds were building up,
ripping open here and there with shafts of light
like God had lost a few screws.
She huffed.
“Well I guess it’s for some other reason then,” she said,
like it didn’t bother her,
just made the world more interesting.
Beat.
I felt her smile shift gears.
“Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m small?
You think with this tiny bum
I can only drop tiny poops?”
I blinked behind my shades.
“Thought so!” she said.
“Well guess what, Archy-boy —
I can drop bombs too.”
“Everybody can drop bombs,” I said.
Like that was the whole point of life.
And that was it.
We rode on.
skin brushing skin,
every bump a reminder we were still here,
even if we were already leaving.
Far above,
two ragged vultures circled slow,
biding their time
‘til our bodies
finally gave them a good reason
to land for.
