The Mute Child

Flash Fiction

Mar 28, 2026

The bright rays that could have been there initially are all gone, the sound made by seagulls has started to sound repulsive, and the waves are coming at an unpredictable speed towards the shore. He is sitting on top of the sand pyramid, with his legs barely touching the ground. He glances around himself but never actually looks at anything particular. His eyes scan his surroundings as if there isn’t much to see, but he couldn't help but stare at the blue mass. He holds sand in his pale yet pinkish, delicate fist tightly and then lets it go. All those waves come close to him and try to touch his pyramid, but never actually have even a slight contact in the end, and thus mean nothing to him. They should have meant something if those violent waves actually did something to him, but they simply don’t, so they shouldn’t. They just crash into each other; they make the roaring sound far away from him, so they don’t matter or mean anything. The waves mimic his creators, the child just sits and watches it all unfold; he flinches, almost cries at the sight, but never does, cause deep down, he’s used to it. His heart holds the numbness to these crashes of the water against each other; he tries his best to show that it doesn’t matter, and in theory, it shouldn’t. Isn’t this how things go? Isn’t violence the basic foundation of life? Every matter is made up of small atoms and particles that are striving to break free from each other, but we must force the atoms together so they can make something new, right? Small push-pulls are extremely common among everyone. What can one do but accept the universal truth? Even the child should have known how it was supposed to go since his first cry.

There is something in the air, something in the cloud, world’s a huge place except it’s all echo and no sound. After looking around for a long time, he placed his hand on top of the pyramid of sand. Picks up a fistful, holds it tightly against his palm, and places it inside his mouth. He chews even the small stones, swallows them whole, and from far it looks like he is playing; one must look close to see it and witness the deterioration of the forced creation. In the end, he’s turning into a mute child who is never going to speak any language except the crashing of the waves, and soon the pyramid will be gone, and he’ll act as if he can walk, or maybe he will walk before his days, in front of crashing waves, only to fall.