A One Page Story

As the young boy with red hair walked slowly up the straight road he spotted a wolf running with two domestic dogs.

The wolf was very thin and the two domestic dogs were larger, muscular and friendlier.

When the dogs saw him, the young boy that is, they stopped, turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

After a short distance the wolf separated from the pack (of three) and trotted into the desert, stopping about 25 yards from the main road.

Here he sniffed the wind and stood incredibly still. He was barely visible against the sandy brownness of the terrain and for a moment the young boy thought he had disappeared.

The domestic dog, tails and heads wagging, headed half hazardly in the direction of a parked car; upon arrival they lay down in the shade.

Though it was early, the sun was already high in the sky, the asphalt was hazy from the heat and, besides the dogs, the world appeared, as the young boy usually thought it did.

He took a sip from a green bottle and wiped the sweat from his brow.

It was Sunday. He thought it was Monday. He was going to school.

He looked into the desert but he could not spot the wolf and now wondered if it had been a coyote. He tried to think of the differences between the two but the only detail that came to his mind was size, wolves were bigger.

A bird cried in the sky and he remembered his mother whispering “Only death will separate us.”

…

Now he hated words and was silent.

“Perhaps, he knows, if he gives voice to the anguish, he will be consumed,” speculated the psychotherapists and grief counselors.

“No one knows pain, as intimately, as a young orphan.” 

But despite their (mental health workers) coaxing he would only nod or shake his head. This infuriated some (social workers) who viewed his dumbness as obstinacy and as failure.. 

They resorted to electrical shocks; his body recoiling in the charge; but still he was silent.

This encouraged some to increase the voltage, though this was not endorsed by all and still he was silent.

The boy was good looking in that athletic, blond haired, blue eyed, sort of way making his resistance some what sweet.

The author wants to say, “There is no answer.”

but of course that is different.