Enga mellom fjella

Polly-shrek-anna

7th entry for June '22 edition of

Journalistic Intentions  (18+) This is for the journal keeping types that come to PLAY! New round starts July 1! #2213121 by Turkey DrumStik

A dog with violet eyes

Shrek smiled at his good fortune and tossed a stone, tossed a branch.

A dog with light violet eyes caught the branch and brought it back to the boy named Shrek, five-foot-two, eyes-of-coal and weighing all of 7 stone. The young man saw his reflection in its pupils, the wag of tail, the whine as he laid it at Shrek's feet. He picked it up and tossed the branch as far as he could. It soared over a bush, over a ditch, landed fifteen feet away.

The dog came back, again and again until cloud-shadows dimmed the light. Shrek petted him gently and slowly walked down the path to the road, never looking around until he got to the lean-to he had called home since yesterday. It began to sprinkle. At least the cardboard roof didn't leak... much. He knew where to huddle to stay dry.

A wet nose nudged him out of his reverie. Violet eyes bored through him until he nodded, then the dog curled up and went to sleep.

Shrek listened to the patter of rain, the distant drumming off the tin roof of a shed, the gurgle in the gutter. He got up to piddle in a puddle. The dog never moved.

He had a dog, it seemed. He'd search for some food in the morning. Shrek loved blueberries. Dogs ate? Maybe the old lady who had let him stay here could help. She had smiled back at him when he had asked if he could rest here.

Shrek considered his good fortune. He'd been kicked out of home four days ago. Now he had a roof, a dry spot, berries to pick and... a dog.

A dog with violet eyes.

© Copyright 2022 Kåre Enga [179.41] (2.juli.2022)

ANALYSIS

Life is going to be good. Shrek is sure of that. The old lady is kind. The dog followed him home. And the blueberries are ripe!

He may be totally dissociating but... it's all good.

A bit like Pollyanna.

Not to say that wild blackberries guarding the path to the blueberries don't have thorns but a scratch or two is a small price to pay for Paradise.

And the dog may have a flea or two and the old lady seemed to be frail and missing a couple teeth; but, Shrek knew kindness. He had felt it once in third grade.

Everything was going to turn out all right.

So...

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/QuirkyTown

...maybe this is a quirky spot along a country road, a nowhere like Brigadoon... beware of tornadoes? Nah... this is more like Tahlequah and "Where the Red Fern Grows".

When I ran away moved to Oklahoma I ended up in a small town, was taken in by a woman with three kids, lived north of Moodys, down Long John Hill and across the flint-rock creek in a crossroads called Teresita. It was a year of healing.

More than one local mentioned that Tahlequah was a place of healing.

So I've lived among quirky people (the homeless community was quirkiest) and seem to fit in with misfits.

I survived. Shrek will too. And the old lady and the dog with violet eyes are a part of that.

~525 words