My+Short+Story

media type="custom" key="2995812"media type="custom" key="2995804"media type="custom" key="2995806"So this is my story. The parts in bold are definitely need an overhaul, which I will work on during the next few days. I need help on pacing and narrative structure and if the flashbacks flow seamlessly/not so seamlessly. I'm not sure. Also the ending is rushed because I didn't have much time to write it, so that will be fixed. Also tell me if I'm working too hard to convey the thematic meaning. I think I'm being slightly too obvious. This is more of an experimental work in which I'm trying to gather all the different literary elements I've been learning and utilizing them in my story, although I'm not sure how successful I am. The story really needs work, so I'll be updating it shortly for sure:

**Untitled**

The sun was unkind. It scorched the earth and cracked it and let it dry until it crumbled, and there was nothing around but the flies that thought of you as already dead. The scant grasses stood frail and short as if losing some battle. No affair moved the sun. No one questioned it, just as no one questioned the reason of anything, and the sun directed its wry grin on the earth it wrought. Croaking with laughter, the eyeball above seemed to say: there isn’t a thing to do. No, there was no question to that. The boy, on the edge of becoming a man, walked toward the village in the north. His feet ached terribly; he was tired and he needed to rest. He suppressed this feeling and continued walking, his feet stamping on the earth as if he was angry at its hardness but found pleasure in the act. The wilderness was no place for a boy. As he walked, his face was contorted to reveal deep ridges on his forehead and his eyes squinted against the sun. He had a pulsing bruise on his cheek, a pulse made only stronger by the punishing sun and the heavy beat of his heart. He paid no attention. He held himself like a warrior, his face hung high, his shoulder’s square, turned forward, and the expression on his face fixed — made of bronze. “Run,” he faintly heard his mother say again. But he didn’t run. Earlier in the day, when the sun just began to rise, she was washing some rags in the metal tub, bending her back and muttering to herself. She wore a colorful scarf on her head, tied neatly to her crown. She swayed back and forth as she washed the cloths, thankful for the shade, because even at the early hours the earth already baked. They boy, meanwhile, sat quietly by the entrance to the hut. Stroking the few hairs on his chin, he idly threw crumbs to the birds which fought each other ferociously, pecking the feathers off one another until they were almost bare. In the wake of a shortage of food and desperation, ugly personalities emerged. The village was quiet and the boy saw no one about. All of the men were out to kill a lion because it had killed a girl the day earlier. The woman were at the river or in their huts, slaughtering chickens for dinner or gossiping among themselves. The boy had often heard them gossiping, stretching their necks to be heard. They spoke of her shameful situation, clucking their tongues, speaking of themselves as self-proclaimed **saviors for all their help.** They said It was not respectable to have a child out of wedlock. What they would have done if it had been them! “She should have married the man before it showed,” some whispered, putting their hands on their stomachs as example. “I’ll watch they boy, of course, and he can help around my house while you’re off at the river,” a few of the women said, smiling—smiling widely. And in their groups, the women loudly proclaimed the shame it would be if the boy did not help them when they were older, as they had helped his poor, defenseless mother. Well it would be simply unrespectable! Reprehensible! And the women simply wouldn’t stand for it! – and they craned their necks to illustrate exactly the power this group had, and looked ominously at the women, bent at her washings—the washings she did for them, for food. And what about their children? Well they were gone – far off to some place to achieve some wonderful honor—or so they said. And when one woman left the group for the river or the hut, the women talked of her child that sat indolently or had run off. When the boy became a child, the boy was eagerly pecked by the village women to work. And all the while, the women stood smiling, their hands on their hips, long necks nodding heads in approval. When their hands left their hips, it was only to pull the boy along to the next task. Inside the boy fumed, where was his childhood? But his mother stroked his head gently when he complained, weary to the cruelty of the world. What has fate dealt this boy! “Don’t take revenge,” his mother used to say. “You cannot let strong emotions control you, it will only bring worse into the world.” She went back to washing, he went to his corner, and the day continued, and the sun its undying rise until even the shade was unbearable. So the boy continued walking towards the village to the North. The events of the day seemed like a l lifetime ago, and a few more crevices formed when he thought of it. Around midday a man that claimed to be his father burst into the hut. He had hair the ugly black of a vulture and eyes just as keen. He seemed to comport himself with a depraved calculating posture, as if standing on a rock and looking with a piercing yellow eye down at the world. The boy’s mother had gasped and threw him to the corner, and the man came to her and held her by her arm. “Remember Nina? She left me because of what you did.” That was all he said. He took the mother’s neck, and with a fragility the boy hadn’t known, it broke. The man snarled and looked at the boy in disgust, his eyes seeming to slowly crawl over the boy, disgusted, and gave him a blow to the face, and left, his vulture hair slightly ruffled. And so the boy who was to be a man walked under the omnipresent sun and saw only his mother’s neck and the man’s eyes. The sun seemed to pound on his back and distort his view of the land, as it seemed blurred and intangible.
 * But the man that bore her the child had become violent at the humiliation and was exiled from the village. This came through the suggestion of the women who feared him too, and when the man was gone they took it as their great altruistic philanthropy. They felt owed. Oh, they said, the child would be such a help when he was older, no doubt. **
 * And so now she stood bent while he threw crumbs to the birds. She looked at her dear boy, and called him over, to come to his dear mother. She enveloped him in her arms and then kissed him on the cheek. He felt as in a cocoon for a moment, and she told the boy, “Do the right thing always. Sometimes it’s easy to forget.”**
 * The day passed and the sun was replaced by the moon. A warm breeze comforted the boy as the earth grew cooler, and he felt protected in this wind. Although the light of the moon was lesser than that of the sun, it was a more comforting presence. **
 * In time he reached an acacia tree. It’s branches to spread across the earth and they were inviting. He saw it was a good place to rest. He climbed up on one branch, and although it seemed weak, it held him snugly, and the boy, suddenly so tired, fell asleep enconmpassed within the branches of the tree and the slow petting of the wind.**
 * He woke when the moon was about to set and the sun was already preparing its hot rays.**
 * He groaned a little and turned his head, seeing ten feet away a lion’s face. The boy froze. The lion prowled close to the ground, licking his lips. The boy jumped to a higher branch, quickly, hoping it would discourage the lion. A light breeze, the same as that of the night before, seemed to empower him. He wasn’t afraid. The boy let out a huge roar, and he jumped on the branch again and again until the lion ran away from fright. The moon was almost set, and the sun’s rays were now visible. Even when t**
 * The lion was gone the boy jumped and roared on the branch, until it became frightful and barbaric. The boy felt like a man, and as the branch beneath him broke, the moon set beneath the earth like a heavy, melancholy sigh, and the sky seemed to bleed with the rising sun.**