November, 19, 2009 The Mystery Man (Based on: The Witch)
Many passengers were getting off the train and the air in the coach felt lighter.
The mother sighed, she had originally intended for the ride to be short, since her head was
throbbing from listening to her son's on and off rants and the baby's non-stop crying.
The tracks were clanking, metal screeching against metal, and the jostling has woken up the
baby.
"Waaah!" the baby, Emma, began to slide downwards, the rattle dropping out of her clutches.
"Shush, shush... It's okay..." the mother cooed while picking up the rattle and thrusting it back
into the baby's arms. She glanced over at her son, Johnny, who was eating quietly and staring
out the window in deep thought.
"Mother, we're on a river. This is a river and we're on it." he mumbled. The mother looked up.
"Fine," she said half-heartedly.
As she was going back to the novel she was reading, her arms went slack, mind
turning numb, and her blue eyes glazed over, struggling with sleep.
Suddenly, she was being shaken awake and her eyelids flew open.
"Mom! Look there's a cow! How far do we have to go?"
"Not much longer now." She replied, rubbing her temples warily without noticing the train's
sudden lurch forward and Emma banging her head on the window sill.
"Wah...Waah...WAAAH!" Several high pitched wails rose into the air, breaking the temporary
silence and making the other occupants on the train uneasy. This time, instead of the mother
coaxing the baby back to sleep, her son got up and began to pet his sister's feet, begging her
not to cry. The mother smiled in relief while giving him a lollipop. Sometimes it was nice
having Johnny around.
"I saw a witch." He said after a brief silence. "There was a big old ugly old bad old witch outside."
"Fine." She said, shaking her head in disbelief. 'Children and their imagination...' she thought
and went back to reading her book. Yet, her son continued on, still mumbling to himself from
time to time about witches and what-not when all of a sudden, he stopped. Feeling an almost
eery silence settle in the atmosphere, the mother tensed and looked up, only to see her son's
immobile eyes transfixed to the door of the coach.
Right at that moment, an elderly man stepped through the doorway, a pale man with a
pleasant face covered with several whisps of white hair, and was behold: smoking a cigar.
He was generally headed to their row of seats and was about to pass them when Johnny called
out, "Hi." The man paused, shook his cigar out in a gesture to the boy, and said,
"Hello yourself, son. What you looking for, out that window?" His voice was a soft, low tenor.
But, before she could warn her son about the "no talking to strangers rule" Johnny had already answered.
"Witches." Johnny said, eyes shining with a delight that he had someone else to talk to.
"Bad old mean witches." He quipped again.
"I see." The man said, exhaling a puff of smoke. "Find many?"
The mother choked, coughing at the foul gray cloud being blown in her direction.
Her eyes were already watering in response.
"Hmmm...my father smokes cigars." Her son said, redirecting the strange conversation.
"Really?" The man inquired, raising his eyebrows. "Well, all men smoke cigars and some day
you'll smoke a cigar too." The man continued in a voice dripping with sarcasm.
The mother grimaced, she hated smokers, which was why they were on the train in the first
place, to get away from her chain-smoking husband.
"Well...I'm a man already." Her son countered back, attempting to square his shoulders.
"How old are you?" The man said, who looked like he was holding back laughter.
Pondering on the question, Johnny answered, "Twenty-six. Eight hunnerd and forty-eighty."
Being fond but stern, the mother corrected him, "Four." She said, flashing a quick smile to her son.
"Is that so?" The man questioned, catching the mother's eye across the aisle.
"Is that your mother?"
She was about to reply when her son leaned towards the man and said, "Yes, that's her."
The man glanced at her and nodded his head curtly in a greeting then tuming abruptly, he
asked Johnny for his name.
Johnny eyed the man suspiciously before answering, "Mr. Jesus," he said.
Startled at her son's behaviour, the mother gripped him firmly by the arm, "Johnny." She said, more to her son than the man.
Johnny shook himself free and ignored his mother.
"That's my sister over there, she's twelve-and-a-half."
"Do you love your sister?" The man asked, suddenly coming around to sit beside the boy.
"Listen, shall I tell you about my sister?"
"Tell me!" Johnny said eagerly. "Was she a witch?"
While off to the side, the mother sighed quietly to herself. The story did sound innocent
enough for a child.
"Could I have been wrong about this man for the entire time?" She thought.
In the midst of the man's story telling, she made up her mind, put her book down, and
began to listen.
However, the story had changed; the man had apparently murdered his own sister.
With vivid images of severed limbs, wild bears, and bloodied torsos running through her mind,
the mother leapt up.
"Wait a minute!" She exclaimed loudly.
Unfortunately, she forgot about the younger child beside her and the sheer force she
exerted from just standing up, had toppled the baby over.
"Waaah!" the baby cried, for the 3rd time that day.
The mother was in a dilemma. She couldn't do both things at the same time!
So quickly straightening her daughter back up, she stomped over next to the man and spoke,
"Just what do you think you're doing?"
Startled at the outburst, the man looked up at her and she said to him, "Get out of here."
"Did I frighten you?" The man teased, nudging Johnny in the side with his elbow.
Both Johnny and the man burst out laughing.
"This man cut up his sister." Her son looked up to her, his voice filled with awe.
"Hmmph! I can very easily call the conducter." She said to the man, her face red with
rage.
"The conducter will eat my mommy," Johnny said to the man. "We'll chop her head off."
"And little sister's head too," the man said jokingly. At least she thought he was joking.
The man got up and walked down the aisle to the door.
"Don't ever come back in this car," she threatened.
"My mommy will eat you," her son said to the man.
After the both of them shared a mutual laugh, the man departed, weaving around her with a
polite, "Excuse me," and was gone.
"How much longer do we have to stay on this old train?" Her son said, his sharp voice
piercing through the mist of tension.
"Not much longer," she said, racking through her brain for something else to say, but failed.
"Just sit still and be a good boy. You may have another lollipop."
Her son followed her obediently back to their seats; Emma was sound asleep.
"What do you say?" She demanded.
"Thank-you." Johnny replied. "Did that man really cut his sister up in pieces?"
"No, he was just teasing. Just teasing." She said, almost urgently.
"Prob'ly," her son said, sucking diligently on the lollipop.
"Prob'ly he was a witch."