Little Bo Peep ...

“Little Bo peep has lost her sheep, and doesn’t know where to find them. Leave them alone and they’ll come home. Bringing their tales behind them.”

The words jolted Snare back from where her mind took her. Like so many times before her peripheral view conjured the same images. It was the same old chair, the same sunny window that pulled at her memory whenever arguments turned too heated -- whenever she closed her eyes and drew back on her breath.

Now poised and intently alert, Snare refocused her gaze as she sat across the table from Draven. She watched him delve his perfectly carved, muscular fingers into the historically chipped kitchen table.  

“Are you fricken’ crazy?”

“Not intentionally,” Snare replied with some amusement. Ignorance seemed to be carved throughout her facial features as she adamantly avoided his gaze. Internally she was trembling. What would he think if she had to tell him that she was constantly pulled into disarray? That she was scared of closing her eyes yet also scared of staying awake.

“There is no way you are going to work in an old age home.” He moved papers around the kitchen. Prancing--the thing he did when he wanted to say things that should have been left unsaid.

“It’s not your choice,” Snare had answered. “You told me to get a life and that’s what I am doing.”

“Yes a life – a next step.” Draven gritted with clenched teeth. “Working there won’t give you that.”

“Ag man, give her some space,” Sarge said. His voice created a small electric surge down Snare’s spine.

“She needs to forget about him. She needs to stop thinking about the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘could have beens’, but instead she’s not. She is just playing with time.” Draven muttered as he once again moved the newspaper from the one side of the kitchen to the other.

“Isn’t that on my side, Drave?” Snare objected. “Isn’t that enough? Gosh, Drave, you get upset when I hang around in the trees at night. You get even more upset when I sit in my room and yet, when I go out and find a job... You still manage to find yet another reason to still stay – upset! Goeie genugtig, this is what I want. You are not my father, my brother, my mother or my husband. You are my friend. That’s where it ends.” Snare gritted.

The frustration with the argument was pulling her to the edge of her seat, and the fact that she had to motivate her reasons for doing anything, made her want to fidget, which was dorky.

But, it’s what she did when people trotted to close to her personal space. She knew Draven well enough that she didn’t have to put too much effort into the argument but the fact that there was an argument was what made it irritating.

She had managed to get the job for the night shift and had gone over numerous materials in order to do the best in what she was going to undertake. She knew that it was one thing to fake a CV but another thing to work in a medical field and not know anything. Yes, she was only going to be an assistant, but preparation was important. Even more so, she wanted to be part of something bigger. She had spent much time at the home in the last month. She had shadowed the place in order to make notes of patients, their conditions, schedules and movements.

Draven refused to understand her decision, which was to be expected, since he never understood her lately. What mattered was that she understood why she wanted to work there and that made it satisfactory. She remained unmoved by his outburst and was still well contained within thought while inspecting the tip of her burning cigarette.

Draven had aged, which was something that wouldn’t ever happen for her. He had little Dravens running around the house, which was another thing that wouldn’t ever happen for her again, either. This life, which he had now, was more than he had anticipated when she had met him. Hell, it was more than she had anticipated for him. Out of everyone, she, of all people, could see his appreciation reflecting in his soul, daily. Akira, now his wife, had given him a good and full life. He must have broken the record of living shape shifters a while back. His happiness and small pot-belly were signs of the good life. Ignoring the intense discussion between Snare and Sarge, Snare slipped away up to her room still debating her thoughts while she ironed her work uniform. 

Draven was a martyr when it came to close friends and family. His obsession with containing things made it difficult to understand what she missed and longed for. She realized that the longer she stayed. He would however, hear nothing of her leaving -- after everything that they had gone through. Yet, at the same time, he also didn’t want her staying, since her depression rubbed off on everyone.

She flitted back down the stairs and took seat in a chair opposite from them where they were still contained within their conversation, which still revolved around her. Like a stubborn child, she lifted her feet to the table and toppled her chair in an effort to show her annoyance, before flicking her braided hair over her nape. In order to add to Draven’s frustration, she lit another cigarette and blew little circles towards his direction. The frown on his forehead increased, his eyes became shadowed as he tried desperately to contain snapping at her. This facial expression made her grin inwardly as she recalled how they had met.

Throughout their journey, and it had been a journey, their friendship had been one of unspoken camaraderie that view people ever understood. The bottom line now was that they loved to hate each other. Without the love hate relationship being fed daily, they would be dying, and more death -- for her, now wouldn’t be plausible. After all, she was apparently – special. Dying was not an option.

Exasperated, she got up from the table in an effort to pacify his irritation and went outside. She slumped into a wooden chair and lit a new cigarette. Inside Sarge, Draven and Akira still continued their rotational chatter. It was as if, she wasn't there.

“This is a good thing,” Akira said to Draven. “She needs to take baby steps before she can carry on”

“Ja, and what better way than to play around with some old hags,” Sarge replied.

“I just don’t think it’s the right thing to do. Instead of planning her future she is plodding around in hope for the past to catch up with her,” Draven whispered with some agitation. Snare could hear how he was still fidgeting with papers. She could almost feel the tremble of his agitation as he again rolled the newspaper pages between his hands.

“Ag man, these things take time. When your dad died you also felt jammer for yourself. In fact it was only once you brought that girl home--” Snare could envision him pointing to where she sat due to the split second of silence before he continued his sentence. “--that you started becoming human again.”

“What future are you talking about, Drave,” Akira asked huskily. “She has nothing but us. Everything she has lived for has been taken away from her -- twice. That’s more despair for one lifetime don’t you think?” 

“People die and go away every day. It’s part of life,” Draven continued.

“You know, man, I’ll sommer hit you. Your whole life you were moping around and now that she needs your help you are giving her kak. She is not asking your permission, Draven. She is here because you want her here and she is going to work there because you want her to get a life, so give the girl a break. She can’t just sit around and wait for one day, someday when everyone is ready to come at her again, and then you can be there to protect her,” Sarge barked.

“Maybe that’s your problem,” Akira said. “Maybe you just want to protect her too much.”

The argument was driving Snare insane. She closed her eyes. Immediately the vision re appeared with the same words whipping past on the light wind that flitted through the white curtain. 
“Little Bo peep has lost her sheep, - did she really loose it? Or where they taken? 
And doesn’t know where to find them. Yes she can admit to that, but who cant? 
Leave them alone and they’ll come home. Which is something she was sure her grandfather would have said? She had tried that though --to wait. In the beginning but in the end … what was she waiting for? 
Bringing their tales behind them.” Which she knew was what Murphy’s Law would have predicted. That everything would come back. That those who had left her would feel sorry once they return.

Would she ever find it? She suddenly wondered as she opened her tear stricken eyes. Was she crazy? She wished that she was the same as she was at the time of her change. Things had been so different then. She had been innocent. She had been stronger. It’s like that, when you are younger --whether you are human or not. Things always seem more achievable when you are younger. The realization triggered an old memory that pulled her back to the very night she had met Draven. She had been merely days old in her new form. How times had changed. She had been the one who had savoured him that night.

Had she not, who knew where either of them would be today.

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