“A CHILD” (SHORT STORY)

You were born for this.

From the moment you could prop your head up as an infant, you sensed something wasn’t quite right. All you saw was the clumsy plotting all around you.

“A Child” strips away nostalgia and sentiment to reveal some honest truths.

Are writers born?

Or made?

500 words / 2 minutes of evocative reading pleasure

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‘‘We become what we behold.’ Marshall McLuhan

STEFANO BOSCUTTI

A CHILD

You can’t remember who told you. But you can still remember what they said.

‘To be happy in life, look at what made you happy when you were five or six years old, when you were a child. Look at what gave you joy then. To be happy now, simply do that.’

So you look at the photos of yourself as a child and the memories tumble back.

In one you’re dressed as a cowboy for a kindergarten play. Checked shirt, fringed chaps and your grandfather’s pipe clenched tightly in your smile. Toy gun drawn and regaling the tiny audience with some tale set in an imaginary western far, far from your country town.

In another you sit perched high atop a pillar on the driveway gates of your grandparent’s house with an open Walt Disney comic book in your hand and a look in your eyes that shows you’re not really there. You don’t care if you fall or fly. You don’t care for the camera. You’re lost in a story. Lost in joy.

You think further back and remember your first memory. Lying on a silk Persian carpet, your head cradled in your upturned palms. Smiling and watching a black and white detective show on the black and white television in the good room.

A tired no-nonsense police detective is in a nightclub questioning the barman about a murder. A beautiful assistant has died on stage when the knife thrower hurled the last knife deep into her. A beautiful dead girl who had run away from her wealthy parents, a beautiful dead girl with a secret.

The knife thrower - her lover, perhaps - is nowhere to be found. The detective questions the nightclub owner, patrons, even the drummer who had provided the drum roll before each blade was thrown.

And it’s there on the sheet of music the detective sees an extra drum roll has been written into the score. Seven knives were thrown instead of the usual six.

And you remember that even as a child you thought it an odd clue, a little too forced, too ham-fisted.

You remember thinking that surely there was a better way to tell the story.

And that’s what you’ve been trying to do ever since.

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The moral rights of the author are asserted.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or copying and pasting, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing.

Stefano Boscutti acknowledges the trademark owners of various products referenced in this work. The publication or use of these trademarks is not authorised or sponsored by the trademark owner.

This is a work of fiction. While many of the characters portrayed here have counterparts in the life and times of you and others, the characterisations and incidents presented are totally the products of the author’s introspective imagination. This work is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It should not be resold or given away. Thank you for your support. (Couldn’t do it without you.)

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STEFANO BOSCUTTI

A CHILD

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