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THE JOURNEYS OF JULIUS ORANGE Chapter 01 “Look at the kid’s weirdo feet!” Johnny yelled this to the other boys scattered around the small town’s drugstore entrance. Billy, a rather short towhead with insecurity issues, lisped, “Who wearth thokth with wireth on them and no shoeth?” Laughter broke out in the group, both because of the new boy’s socks and Billy’s wet words. The owner of the aforementioned apparel smiled when he heard the taunting comments. He knew the reason behind his metallic footwear. His dark blue eyes looked past the group of teenage boys as if they didn’t matter. In fact, they didn’t. They were temporary and thus of no importance to Julius Orange. For some unknown reason, the 15-year-old chose that name before leaving home. Thank goodness, I’ve only a few minutes left here. This thought, accompanied by a sigh of relief, marked the end of a two-hour stay for Julius in Colma, California. He had decided to finish his vacation with a visit to the town known for its many cemeteries. “Hey, kid, why ya got on wire socks?” Keith, the largest of the boys and unarguably the dumbest, swaggered up to Julius and forced him to halt. He poked Julius in the chest right on the middle of five buttons going down the smaller boy’s pink sweater. “Why ya wearing a girlie color sweater?” Keith turned his head toward his friends while saying this. He wanted to make sure they could hear him and felt rewarded when he heard their snickering at his witty comments. Julius ignored Keith and walked around him to continue on his way. He glanced down at the timepiece on his left ring finger. One more minute, and then I’m off. He felt a hand on his shoulder and knew without turning around that Keith was intent on continuing to show off to his friends. Shaking his head at this unwanted disturbance, Julius turned back to face the belligerent bully. In a quiet, unthreatening voice, he warned, “I think you might want to remove your hand or suffer the consequences.” He could feel the familiar tingling starting in his toes and knew it was almost time. “I ain’t scared.” Keith sneered at what he took to be a harmless geek, who didn’t know better than to wear weird socks and a girlie pink sweater. Keith dug his fingers deeper into Julius’s shoulder. “It’ll take more than a skinny runt to hurt me.” Johnny called out, “You should be careful, kid. Keith can whip your…” Julius smiled sadly when he once again looked at his finger’s timepiece. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He and Keith suddenly disappeared in a flash of sparkling light. * * * Screaming in terror, Keith found himself lying on his stomach, spread-eagle on the deck of a large, sinking ocean liner. All around the severely canted ship, he could hear the cries from hundreds of drowning people. Standing next to him was Julius with a look of mild curiosity on the young woman’s face. The nerdy boy was now a beautiful female in her early 20’s. Instead of the khaki shorts that had revealed the knobby knees of the teenage boy, she had on a long black skirt that reached just to her ankles. Below the hem, Keith could see the weird wire-bound footwear. “Stop screaming.” The woman gave Keith a gentle kick in the ribs to nudge him to his feet. “You’re perfectly safe if you hold onto me. We’ll only be here for two minutes, so calm down.” After a horrified Keith managed to get to his feet and grabbed her arm, Julius continued in her sweet alto voice, “You must have heard of the Titanic. We have arrived to enjoy some of its history.” She walked closer to the ship’s rail and looked down into the freezing water. When Julius heard Keith whimpering, she knew it was time to move on. Already she found it difficult to stand upright and only managed this by holding on to the railing with both hands. Her socks were becoming damp from the rising ocean water sloshing over the deck. When her toes once again began tingling, she made sure that Keith was holding on tightly before the sparkling light removed them from the ship. Within seconds, the Titanic slowly slid down into the sea. * * * Before Keith even blinked once, he stood next to a volcano starting to erupt. Wide-eyed as the red-hot lava inched closer to where they stood, he heard Julius say in an old man’s quavering voice, “Vesuvius, 79 A.D.” After that, they stayed only briefly at each event. Julius, in various human forms, showed Keith many forms of death and destruction. One stop ended in a busy morgue during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Another time, they stood on the shore in 1853 to watch a New Haven Railroad train run through an open drawbridge and plunge into the Norwalk River. A series of visits to other disasters culminated near Colma in 1906 San Francisco. The loud rumbling of the earthquake blasted against Keith’s ears, and the acrid taste of the dirt from the falling buildings filled his mouth. “I want to go home,” wailed Keith, trying not to see the bodies lying underneath the rubble. A contented look crossed Julius’s boyish face. “I’ve had great fun on my vacation, but I guess it’s time for both of us to return home. You’re first, Keith!” The teenager sparkled out of view. Julius then returned to an amorphous orange blob before winking back to its own planet. * * * After what appeared like days away from his friends, Keith found himself back on the sidewalk with them. “…scrawny butt. Right, Keith?” Johnny’s startled voice raised an octave when he noticed Julius was nowhere in sight. “Where’d the geek go?” Keith tried to explain to his disbelieving friends about the places he visited with Julius. He finally stopped when their laughter became too much for him to handle. Never again, though, did he bully anyone. The trip with Julius had taught him appearances could be deceiving. Tingling toes sometimes mean socks might be more than simple foot coverings.
© Copyright 2009 J. A. Buxton (UN: judity at Writing.Com).
All rights reserved.
J. A. Buxton has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
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