"Do you know where you were born?" Violet asked, her gloved hands typing furiously at the keyboard.
Felix felt his spine go tense. The keystroke sound wasn't much different from the sound of a rifle bolt slamming closed. It was a sound he'd heard so much that it became almost strange for him not hear it everyday. But what made Felix so tense was the fact that he wasn't the one making the sound, which meant he wasn't in control of the situation around him.
He pushed through his tension and answered Violet with a smile, "Would you believe me if I said that I don't actually know where I was born?"
"Do you not remember or were you simply not told?" She again asked, looking at his eyes with her own. Felix noted her eyes were pale blue, like the sea had seen once when his unit traveled by ship to the western front of the war. But he could see in her eyes that she had seen death, just like him.
But what did he have to lose? He decided to toy with the Doll in front of him, "I like that. Most people try to fill in the blanks with their own assumptions. My skin is tanned, which suggests I came from the South. But you can hear my accent, it's closer to people from the Capital. And I'm six feet tall, which is typically something you only see from the North. So who knows? Maybe I was born everywhere? What would you think of that?"
"This is your story, Sargent, not mine. What I think doesn't matter, only what it is that you wish for me to say" she replied, refusing to play his game.
"A good soldier follows all orders eh? Alright then, lets keep going. I don't know where I was born, and I'm not sure who my father was. My mother was a young woman, perhaps as young as you, but I don't really know much about her either. By the time I was old enough to speak, she had died of a fever in the state hospital" Felix said, looking away from those pale blue eyes.
"That is very sad. Did you have any other family? Brothers or Sisters? Perhaps an Aunt or an Uncle?" Violet asked, her voice surprisingly soft to Felix's ears.
"No, no other family. When my mother died, the doctors put me in the orphanage, but I hated that place. I escaped the next day, and I spent most of my childhood on the streets" Felix said.
He looked back up, and continued his story. As he spoke, Violet typed with rapt attention to his words. The clack-clack of that typewriter kept his spine straight. He knew it was just a typewriter, but he still couldn't shake the feeling of not being in control.
"It was a pretty rough childhood, as you can imagine. I spent most of my time on Schalcten Street. You must know it? It's the place with all the expensive shops, the ones that sell jewellery to rich wives and expensive suits to rich men. Anyway, for a while I'd sit on the corner next to a butcher's deli. The rich people would walk by and see me sitting down with a tattered coat and a little bowl I'd stolen from the orphanage. Some times they'd say things like 'Oh, you poor, sweet child' and they drop a few bits of coin in the bowl. If I waited just long enough, about 20 minutes before the deli closed, I'd have enough coin in my bowl to afford something to eat. That's how I survived for a few years" said Felix, remembering those long days and nights. What he hadn't said was that it was always worse in winter. His tattered coat wasn't very warm, and the rich people weren't as eager to open their purses in the cold.
Violet stopped, and asked another question, "You said a few years. Did something happen after?"
Felix had to smile. Is she really this naive? " Yeah, something happened alright. I grew up. Eventually, I wasn't so cute anymore. So the rich people wouldn't give me as many bits of coin anymore. One guy even kicked me in the face once, he told me I should be working in the coal mines instead of being on the streets. I didn't even know coal was, much less where to find a coal mine"
Violet looked shocked, "That's so cruel. How could someone do that to a child?"
"The world is a cruel place," Felix said, shrugging his shoulders, "You don't make the world be less cruel to you. You learn how to survive when it is, that's it. So after he kicked me in the face, I followed that guy. He was a Gentleman of some kind, now that I think about it. His clothes were perfectly pressed, and when he took off his black leather gloves, his hands looked like he'd never held a tool in his life. He went into a postal office and started arguing with the clerk about something, I wasn't really paying attention"
He smiled as he recalled his favourite part of this particular story, "But I did pay attention to something else. He took out his pocket watch, a nice gold one with a silver chain. He put it down on the counter, and went to the back room to continue arguing with the clerk. There was no one else around, so I walked up to the counter, put the watch in my pocket, and ran out of the office until I couldn't run anymore. I sold the watch to one of the jewellery shops, and I had more coin in an hour than I had ever gotten in all the years of sitting on the corner of Schalcten Street with my wooden bowl. The deli gave me so much meat that I didn't even know what to do with it all"
Violet didn't look impressed, "So you a stole a gentleman's watch to afford a meal. That is a crime according to the law"
Felix was also not impressed, "It was that or starve to death. I don't think it really mattered in the end. It's not like the Gentlemen couldn't afford another watch. And it kept me alive, which is the most important part"
Reaching the end of the page, Violet remove the paper from the reel and pulled the spinner back. She placed the finished sheet gently to her left, and placed another black sheet into the roller. She adjusted the spinner and finally let the reel set by pulling it back and letting it slide home, just like the closing of a rifle bolt. When the reel closed, Felix involuntarily straightened out. His mind was screaming that it was just a typewriter, but his instincts were screaming it was a rifle.
"You can continue when you're ready" Violet said, her hands hovering above the typewriter's keys.
Felix took a moment to steady himself, and then spoke again, "I started taking more things after that. Watches, wallets, purses. Once, I took another Gentleman's fur hat. I still don't know why, but that hat was worth so much money that the owner of the deli let me rent the room above his shop for a week. That room might as well have been the Royal Palace for all little Felix knew. There was a bed with a blanket, and the door could lock from the inside. I felt safe for once, and the first night I was there, I slept better than I ever had"
"Do you know what it feels like to sleep in a bed for the first time, Violet? It's like floating on a cloud. I never felt so good as when I slept on that bed for the first time" Felix said with a deep sigh.
"It is a...very nice feeling" Violet replied, stopping for a moment as she thought of the right words.
"I imagine you slept in some pretty nasty places in the war. I did too. You sleep in mud, in dust, next to the bodies of your friends, the bodies of the enemy. You wake up, and your face is covered in blood. There were times in the trenches that I would have given everything just for another night in the room above the deli" Felix said, let his mind wander back to the war.
"Restful sleep is one of the most challenging problems for soldiers" Violet said, continuing to type, "I've seen many men die because they were too exhausted to continue fighting"
Felix again let himself smile, "So, we do have something in common after all. I'm starting to think the Warden wasn't pulling my leg after all. People who aren't soldiers don't understand that. They go to sleep every night in soft beds in locked bedrooms. I think they take for granted just how much of a luxury a good night's rest is"
Violet completed another sheet, and removed it just as she'd done with the first. She was about to pull the reel back when Felix suddenly slammed his hand against the metal table, "Stop! Don't do that!"
Violet tilted her head to one side, "Do what? I was only changing the sheet sir"
Feeling his chest tighten, Felix stood and tried to calm himself, "Just, just wait a minute okay? Please"
Violet stood and cautiously took a step towards the client, "Are you alright, Sargent? Do you need a doctor?"
Felix stepped back and refused to to look at her, "Every time you type on that damned thing, do you know it what sounds like? It's the bolt on a rifle. Opening and closing over and over again"
"I am sorry. I apologize if it made you uncomfortable. Would you like to take a break?"
Felix nodded, and went to the corner of the room facing the one window that looked out on the prison yard, "Yeah, a break. Just...I need a few minutes. The Warden's paying you after all"
