literature

The Conductor

Deviation Actions

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Literature Text

When the boy was angry, he went out to conduct the waves.  

When his father gathered them all at the table, gathered their wide eyes and uncertain futures, gathered their love, and their admiration, then pulled out the small square of paper, the boy did not even wait for the words to come.  He lifted clear out of his chair, like a marionette away from a tiny stage, and lighted out of the house.

His nimble toes scrambled over sharp pebbles, but he didn’t even notice the small cuts that cast their red across his skin, coloring outside the lines, his veins; he crawled up on the slippery rock.  He stood, solid, with nothing but his fists for a baton.    

Thunder rumbled in anticipation as he unfolded his fingers and the sound of screeching gulls erupted overhead.  He could see his father trembling in the trench, the screams of the dying and wounded pressing in on his ears.  Waves, the center-point of his orchestration, rushed to the boy in a blast of salt and foam, billowing up like endless enemies marching on, marching ever towards his father.  As the boy’s storm gathered force, his father plugged his ears and the canons roared; pinpricks of lightening nipped the land and sky as rain came, rushing into the fortissimo that the boy commanded.  

Chaos erupted as the main theme of his piece, with the brilliant cacophony that the red puncture of a bullet produces in a man, and the boy was completely enveloped.  Thunder drilled his ears like the gunshots that riddled the air around the solider; lightening blinded him like the powder, smoke and confusion that was stuffed into the soldier’s face.  The sea drenched him like the blood of companions, as he hauled them back to the dirt, and foam plugged his nose like stale food and the stench of sweat mixed with blood.  The gulls had vanished with the soldier’s sense of order, leaving only instinct.   

With the final crescendo, the concert was over.  

The boy walked, bare foot, through the sand, with his plastered hair and dripping shirt.  In his mind he saw the ragged uniform with dented helmet and pale, torn skin.

His father--his soldier--would be given scars that the ocean could never wash away.
What do you think?

This is another club submission, this time for *TheWritersMeow. The specific journal can be found here: [link]

"Exercise 1" was to use this picture [link] as a prompt. I can imagine the boy standing right there, within all that foam and salt.
© 2008 - 2024 mackwrites
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tetemeko's avatar
You are an astounding writer. :)

This calls for more gallery digging.