Canción Caravana

This is another quick tale in my dabbling within writing. This was originally supposed to be a strict June contest entry but since it appears I have some time I shall also ask for criticism and the like.

Even though I had consulted a few members on here for a few Spanish things I give my pardon to any butchering of words and/or grammar you may find in the story and you have permission to ridicule myself for this.

More x-indent shenanigans included.


CANCIÓN CARAVANA

xxxThe boy stood silently, almost ghost-like, among the empty expanse of grass that opened up around him. Wherever his small eyes would turn, dart about and observe, he would see only the dusty yellow plain, calling and beckoning for him with its tantalizing mystery. The boy always loved the plain, but he was never permitted to traverse this great, wafting sea of grass – at least, not simply in a pitiful “adventure”. But at this moment, the boy stood among the golden grass with a set purpose – one not of childlike dreams of exploration, but of a rational goal.
xxxHe trekked onwards after his quaint moment of silence, stepping through the grass with sandals scraping on soft earth. Occasionally he would catch a glimpse of the odd hill in the distant background, or even a softly spinning windmill, but the boy ignored these last remnants and memories of civilization. He was certainly beyond those tantalizing fruits of man at this moment – after achieving such a lofty goal, why would he be drawn back to his locale, especially in the time of his current quest? He rejected thoughts of visiting the windmills with a vigorous willful strength, and strode onward, onward towards a bright nothingness that only the repetition of the plain did the boy find familiar and nourishing to his young mind.
xxxThe wind would puff and stir the young boy in his quest, the grass and shrubs would attempt to disrupt him from his valiant goal, and his own body would indeed set him back a few steps – all whilst the sun lazily watched on from its bright corner in the sky. But none of nature's tools succeeded in their attempted staunching of the boy's progress. One would consider him almost Herculean in strength of mind as he walked, walked, across the expanse, never collapsing from fatigue, never stopping nor ceasing in his goal. A goal that even he would not consider worth it to doubt, for how much the goal personally meant to the young boy.

xxxAnd finally, after what appeared to the boy as eons traversing ancient plains, did he finally stumble upon his goal – the entire reason for his gruelling voyage through these scarce lands. He ceased his simple stepping and broke off in a rather hasty run, the wind dancing and amusing itself with his loose cloth shirt. Finally, finally, had the boy found what he had always dreamed of, what he had been waiting for!
xxxHe rather quickly stopped and fell to his knees. Before him stood his goal – two planks of wood carelessly nailed together in the vague form of a cross, jammed loosely into the soft earth. The boy repeated the words scrawled on the horizontal plank to assure himself that he had, indeed, succeeded in his quest. “Alfonso”, he continued to repeat. “Alfonso, Alfonso.” And with another gentle wind, the boy sat down, silent and cross-legged as, he began to contemplate a question that continue to pervade his mind for as long as he could truly remember, revived with a powerful life as he focused intently on the rather rudimentary marker that bore the name of his deceased father.
xxxBut what was beheld of his intense thought? Almost nothing, it would appear. The boy knew absolutely nothing of his father – besides, perhaps, his name and a few details gathered from his own village before the trek. His father was indeed as alien to him as any other man: and yet here was the boy, standing among a lifeless landscape a great distance away from his home, praying and thinking of him as if he had known him all his life.

---

xxx“Rodrigo! What are you doing here? Your mother's been looking all over the village for you!”
xxxThe baker peered at the young boy with bright bug-like eyes.
xxx“I-I wanted only to ask, sir-”
xxx“What? Would you think I would be the right person to ask anything?” The baker, upon hearing frantic noises beyond his shop's old wooden door, quickly delved into a slight whisper. “Uh, what do you want, Rodrigo? Bread? That's all I can give you.”
xxx“No, no.” Rodrigo replied with a rather halfhearted attempt at confidence. “You're the only man here who was very good friends with my father, you see, and-”
xxx“Is that what you are asking about? Your father?”
xxx“Yes! I hoped that you would know about him a bit-”
xxxThe baker immediately interrupted the poor Rodrigo with a steady chuckle. “So it's your father that you wish to know about? He's dead.”
xxx“I know that! But how, where did he die?”
xxx“The War.”
xxxRodrigo appeared rather puzzled at the baker's statement, along with its subtle hints and tinges of beleaguering unease.
xxx“Is that not decent enough an answer? He died fighting in the War. That's why his grave is not here in the village and somewhere on that god-damned Meseta. You want to go find him? I'm not stopping you, but if you have come here asking me these horribly stupid questions then I would ask that you leave my shop immediately, Rodrigo.” And the baker scuttled towards the room behind his counter, closing the door and leaving the young Rodrigo alone and curious – a silent phantom among the old wooden floors and dusty walls as he pondered silently the words of the baker.
xxxA slight chime rang out across the dismal shop, and though the door behind the counter did not move, Rodrigo turned his young head and discovered the supple and startling face of his mother, peering out from beyond a bright aura of sunlight.
xxx“Rodrigo! There you are!”
xxxRodrigo's mother strode quickly over to the young boy, and with a tough grip on his wrist, began to drag poor Rodrigo away from the shop and its counter, away from the bleak precipices and nooks of his extensive thought, back into the lovely outside world.
xxx“Mama! Let go of me!”
xxx“Silence, Rodrigo. We are getting back to the house this instant, you scared me when you left for absolutely no reason!”
xxx“But- but I had a reason!” Meekly whimpered a poor, sullen Rodrigo.
xxxHis mother cast the boy a bitter, unmerciful look that stung Rodrigo with a shivering intensity. The young Rodrigo indeed began to finally understand and continued onward with his mother, silent and beaten, his thoughts jumbled and broken in a large, daunting mess. His mother had forcefully retrieved him from the shop without explanation – or at least did Rodrigo believe – and brought him away from his idealistic pondering, back into a harsh, sun-lit reality that bathed lovingly and almost hedonistically in its incessant repetition. Yet even among these obstacles did Rodrigo continue to think, indeed, never ceasing in thought. Thoughts of his father, such a mysterious man.

xxxRodrigo was truly bound by the village, yes; his own personal gaol among a sea of questions, questions that would never be answered, drifting and floating among the vast plain that stretched out in all directions – indeed, he would have, perhaps at the end of such a fateful encounter, considered the village to be the true staunching of progress within his young mind. But Rodrigo would dare not voice such thoughts, not in the presence of his radical mother.
xxx“Rodrigo! Eat!” She commanded, both in daunting voice and presence. She brought her own spoonful of the lovely mush to her lips rather slowly, despite her darkened and dilapidated eyes still fixated on her son.
xxxRodrigo simply concentrated the efforts of his vision on the table, sour-faced and with a slightly saddened look that forgave both contemplation and condemnation. He did not make but a single movement, even a twitch of the hand, to grab his spoon and begin his raucous gluttony.
xxxHis mother was certainly not amused. She slammed her spoon rather noisily on the table, and turned her full girth towards her minuscule son.
xxx“You will eat this instant, Rodrigo. ”
xxxRodrigo continued his vigilant vow of silence, unspoken and indirect.
xxx“Rodrigo! In god's name, eat your food!” His mother cried out desperately.
xxx“Mama!” Rodrigo finally burst out inexplicably, breaking away from the soft bubble of individual thought, back again, yet again, to his harsh, impoverished reality.
xxxRodrigo's mother herself was relatively surprised, but she hastily cloaked her amazement with a pitifully attempted rationality. “What? What do you want, you broken child?”
xxxPerhaps Rodrigo was simply engrossed within his own ponderings and questions to be grazed by such a remark, but he appeared almost immune to such a stinging bite to him, from his own mother, his nursing source of life for much of his own, even. Tears began to coagulate below his usually inquisitive eyes – not tears of offense or sadness, but of a slow, gruelling realization, enveloping and descending, fog-like, thick and viscous, encompassing and caressing his young mind with pessimistic, impure thought.
xxx“Mama, did father ever love me?”
xxxRodrigo's mother stood silent; absolutely stunned by such a question. Her face turned quite melancholic and dismal, and she once again picked up her spoon, uncharacteristically silent and careful, attempting to turn away from her son in a slight disgust.
xxx “Mama?” Rodrigo whispered quietly and slowly, silent as the wind.
xxxRodrigo did not witness the single, small tear that slowly made its descent away from the eye of his mother, downwards, continuing to descend, descend, exactly akin to the poor woman's memories of the man as she continued to search anywhere, everywhere.
xxx“Mama, answer me!”
xxx“No!” She cried out abruptly, teeth bared in a haunting grimace. “No. No, he never loved you, did he? He was a man focused only on one goal, that's what he was. No- no wonder he went off to fight in that god damned war.”
xxxRodrigo was struck with such immediate force and intensity that his own face turned wild and beastly in disbelief. Contorted with tear and twisted muscle, he attempted to counteract such thoughts, to no such avail. It would be rather complicated for such a child to discern concealed truths without subconsciously attempting to revoke them beforehand. He could not control nor level his emotions – he felt a burning anger and a horrible, dismal depression at the exact same moment. He tossed himself and his thoughts around, attempting, barely and whilst failing miserably, to assert that his father indeed loved him. But his thoughts were now the clear enemy. They played only the distinct truths, the unanswered letters and wailing of his mother in the depths of a dark night, the latest pessimism from the village-folk about him, the distant, innocent childhood memory of his frowns and angered expressions, directed towards him, only him, Rodrigo, the son of such a man he himself knew little of. The son he had never loved.

---

xxx“Chico!”
xxxThe boy, startled, leaped up from his resting place by the old grave marker. The sun, at this point, shone lazily from its heavenly perch in the sky, but despite its all-encompassing embrace of light across the golden plain, Rodrigo acknowledged it only to discover the direction of the mysterious voice.
xxxHe found a shadow, slowly moving, in the amazing distance – only now did Rodrigo discover appeared truly infinite in such a light. “Chico!” It called out yet again, and Rodrigo felt that he was certainly drawn to the voice. It held an odd, adherent quality to it, exclamatory, unearthly and eventful – Rodrigo had certainly heard it, or if not had wished he had heard it, previously in his lone and silent life.
xxxThe shadow moved closer, growing larger and greater in intensity, but Rodrigo had to resist his curious temptations – not by his own will, but by his own magnetic attachment towards the grave of his late father. Instead of a physical response to the figure, he simply sat back down on the grass and began to await an oncoming mystery.
xxxThe shadow twisted and contorted as it continued closer and closer towards the boy. It evolved into something finite and real, the penumbric veil casting away itself to reveal something the boy would not have expected to see in such an infinite middle of nowhere.
xxx“A- a caravan?” Rodrigo quietly whispered to himself – the only true lines of words he had stated in quite a while in his time on the great plain, yet even the words themselves began to float and drift on the wind as they reached the caravan with relative ease.
xxx“I see you are alive!” Called out the voice, yet again. Though the vehicle was still a slight distance away from him, the young Rodrigo could make out a large cart being pulled by a purely enchanting white horse, not at all straining or forced. The large cart carried all sorts of odd trinkets and accessories – cups and buckets, jugs half-filled with stagnant water, planks of wood, old, empty purses and pulverized metal, jagged and foreboding, that jutted out of the pile of goods menacingly. Bales of unused hay and the heads of old statues, human-like idols, hefty chests that were shut tight. All of these objects appeared to incite a distant reaction within Rodrigo, but what sparked his conscious the greatest was the assortment of things from the War – assortments of rusted guns, old hats and boots and wet, bloodstained jackets that showcased a horrific, gruelling toil. Shells and bullets, broken and jagged, adorned parts of the cart, and to top of such a miserable memento was the torn and decaying flag of the Spanish Republic, dancing among the wind with an almost ghostlike and hollow quality on its rusted pole – a flag that Rodrigo remembered clearly, not for the horrible overthrow associated with it, nor for its loss to a spiteful god of time, but for his father – the ruthless man who decided to fight beneath it.
xxxRodrigo's stream of thought abruptly ceased when the great caravan had finally stopped its journey directly in front of the boy and the old grave marker he sat before. The mountain of odd goods was immense, and as the boy attempted to look upwards in way of catching a glimpse of the man on his mountain of memories, he viewed only an inhuman shadow of a presence, outlined and defined only by the sun's intense light behind him. But despite this, his voice would not cease in soothing poor Rodrigo.
xxx“Chico, you personify the true spirit of the Meseta, walking all the way here from your village. May I ask of you the reason of your aimless wandering in the first place, or are you simply a child vagrant?”
xxxRodrigo, after another deal of complacent thought, pointed silently to the grave of his father.
xxxThe man laughed heartily, but this only succeeded in angering Rodrigo.
xxx“Who are you to laugh at a dead man who sacrificed his life to save the people of this country? Are you, yourself, not living because of him?” He quipped viciously.
xxx“Oh, chico, my purpose and my reason for living died a while ago, that is why I wander the Meseta like an unwanted vagrant,” The man replied, a tinge of regretful bitterness laden in his voice. “War is a horrible thing, especially if you are thrust into it while you still hold experiences with others you wish to correct in your mind. They follow you.”
xxxRodrigo noticed how the man spoke with a sense of shattered dignity – as if such experiences had been thrust upon him and he had failed to cope with them properly.
xxx“Chico”, The man asked, “You did not answer my question.”
xxx“I had told you before,” Rodrigo explained, “I am here for my father.”
xxx“But there appears to be a strange look about you, as if you are waiting for something. You are distant, thinking and pondering, and whenever I speak to you about your father you hold this almost negative tone in your voice.”
xxxRodrigo stood up, slight tinges of anger yet again evident in his eyes. “What are you doing here, anyway? I see you have all of those goods on your cart, are you a merchant? Perhaps you should go back to your moneymaking and leave me with my father.”
xxx“I am no merchant,” The man chuckled softly. “These goods are not, nor will ever be, for sale. They are too valuable.”
xxx“Then what are you doing here? Who are you?”
xxxFrom atop the peak of his small mountain, Rodrigo could hear the man sigh a rather drifting and melancholic sigh. He noticed a slight shift in the shadowy figure of the man as he reached out for something beyond the boy's view. Immediately after, he heard the sharp plucking of a guitar string among the air.
xxx“We are alone, there is no one here.” He called out, returning to his simplistic sitting upon the pile, old guitar in hand. “Tell me about your father. Tell me a story.”
xxxRodrigo was annoyed by the inquisitiveness of the man, but it was indeed true – it was only himself and the man with his mountain of familiar goods that stood breathing in this infinite expanse of grass and light that surrounded them. Finally did the young boy begin to understand – at least slightly – and accepted, with slight disdain, the questioning company of the man. He turned his head back to the silhouette, busy tuning his equally-shaded guitar.
xxx“Fine,” Rodrigo replied. “I will tell you a story. I will tell you the only story I know of my father – possibly the only concrete fact I know of the man.”
xxxThe man on his pile continued to silently tune his guitar, only giving a subtle hint of acknowledgement.
xxxRodrigo began: “Before I left for this grave, my- my Mama told me a story of my father.
xxx“During the War, my father had once been stationed at our village. It was a border town that was very close to the fighting that had been taking place near Madrid at the time. My father and his soldiers had decided to hide in the nearby houses, including ours, for a garrison that they believed would hold until the Bando Nacional arrived.
xxxMy family had stayed under the protection of my father at the time. However, he had become very paranoid from talks of the Nationalists bombing the entire countryside in an attempt to root out my father's soldiers across the remainder of the nation. I, myself, remember when our village was bombed – but very vaguely.
xxxMy father was on the phone with a town called Albacete, which apparently, was very nearby.
xxx“What!” He would yell. “We are stationed in this god-forsaken hellhole and you are telling me the rebels are avoiding this place entirely? You said they would advance onward here from Madrid! My soldiers are wasting my time here!”
xxxFather was cursing and stomping his feet excessively at the time. All my family could do was cower and huddle together below the table.
xxxAnd then my mother called out. “Alfonso, Alfonso, perhaps you should stop-”
xxx“What?” My father whirled around, rage on his face. “I am on the line with the only damned place that can save us? Do you want to die, Urraca? Do you want to die right in your home?”
xxx“I would rather die here!” My mother replied valiantly.
xxxAnd then my father, almost crushing the phone when he placed it back on the receiver, stomped over to my mother and raised her hand to slap her across her face. He was stopped, however, by my aunt.
xxx“Alfonso! You monster, stop this!”
xxxShe jumped up from before the table and walked over to her older brother. “You're a true allegory, you must be! Look at this, we have our own civil conflicts in Spain and here you are breaking the family apart by your own rage!”
xxx“I did not ask for your unneeded opinion!”
xxx“You are receiving mine anyway, idiota!”
xxxThe argument, however, was broken by a soldier entering the room. Due to his odd, international accent, myself and my mother did not understand him, but by the horrified expression on the face of my aunt and brother, it was certainly clear they had.
xxxAs to supplement their shared thoughts, the familiar droning of low-flying airplanes was heard on the now unquiet horizon.
xxx“My god!” My father yelled in a desperate flurry. “My god! All of you, all of you- Rodrigo! Rodrigo, take your aunt to the- the cellar! Take her! Take her and your mother! Immediately!”
xxxHe barked such a command at me that I, almost subconsciously, began to lead my mother and aunt towards the cellar. Twisting and moving through the small house – kitchen, bedroom, walls, walls, more walls, my father's bellowing of commands echoing through the entire house as the soldiers readied themselves – the droning of planes growing louder, louder, always louder. It was horrid; neither myself nor my mother could think straight. My mother had told me that she was able to see horrendous chaos outside as people darted to and fro, attempting to rid themselves of an ever-present, deadly, reality.
xxxWe had finally reached the old wooden door of the cellar, and my aunt was quick to let all of us inside. It was dark and vague, the entire space was long and cold, unused and damp, made entirely of wood – some of it rotten. And there we sat in a corner, all three of us, huddled together for comfort.
xxxAnd then it began. We heard the quaking of the earth. The explosions. The yells. The screams – oh, the screams. Even in my age, I did not need my mother to remind me of those screams – the horrid, inhuman screams that echoed above us, calling, wanting for their mothers, fathers, their lives back, relinquished to a product of petty conflict, bloodcurdling, innocent and gone. Gone. These people, this entire village would be gone soon. Of course, my young mind did not know of that yet. All I could think about is when this nightmare would end and when I would be able to see my father again.
xxxAmidst this horribly infinite darkness, these reverberating screams and ear-shattering explosions, my aunt's voice penetrated the cold. “War is horrid, isn't it, Rodrigo?” She had said with a very strange smile. I had always enjoyed my aunt – she had apparently been overseas in some sort of country called America for her education, but she had always appeared wise and old, experienced in her outlook on the world. A shame to say, oh yes, that I had barely known my aunt, not even her name, especially considering how I was responsible for her death.”
xxx“Chico,” The man interrupted from high atop his mountain of goods, his eyes still abhorrently fixated on his old guitar. “Do not say that. Please.” He continued to make barely any gesture of acknowledgement, but it was apparent that the man was listening quite dearly.
xxxRodrigo detected a slight melancholy in the words of the man, but he cast them off and continued in his excessive monologue.
xxx“And then- and then it happened.” Poor, poor Rodrigo shuddered detestably.
xxx“An explosion, a huge one. It rocked and shook the entire cellar itself. I heard an odd crash and watched with widened eyes as the cellar door began to cave in on itself, birthing cement and wood, bits and pieces of what had been our house, now slowly deteriorating into something unrecognizable.
xxxYet everything continued – the explosions, the screams, the shaking and vibrating. It would not stop, never stop, no, it would continue, go on – go on! And then, another explosion! It's force must have directly hit the location of our underground cellar, for the ceiling began to break apart – desperate and straining.
xxxAnd what did my aunt say in all of this? “Oh dear” - she simply said. Barely an exclamation of fear, even.”
xxxRodrigo sniffed. At this point, fiery tears of memory began to lazily drift down his reddened cheeks.
xxx“Maybe- maybe her last words. For you see, there was another bomb- maybe the final one. And it hit the cellar directly. The entire thing exploded, I can barely remember, but I had remembered the words of my father – dear father, and lunged for my aunt to protect her in a way only a very young child can. It- it, it had been a great large amount of dust and wood and smoke and even things I did not know because my- mother, she was calling, yes, calling. And then I could not see anything.”
xxxRodrigo stared directly at the silhouette of the man, barely a morphing shadow in the bright light, and finished off with a veil of obscuring tears:
xxx“And then after, my father was alive. I was so happy. But then he was angry because my aunt was dead-”
xxx- Rodrigo only barely noticed the sharp and erratic pluck of a mis-tuned string from the man's guitar as he stated the word “dead” -
xxx“She was dead, yes. I had killed her, he- he said. I- I had killed her, killed her when I attempted to save her. The falling wood had impaled part of itself through her torso. And- and what did father do?”
xxx“What did he do, chico?” The man asked quietly – almost a whisper that Rodrigo only caught from its ethereal familiarity.
xxxRodrigo inhaled a great amount of sun-lit, Meseta air.
xxx“He disowned me. Face covered with soot – he was like a ghost, not even human, yet I could recognize him. I could always recognize my dad as long as he recognized me. But at that moment, when he said those words, they killed me. Another casualty of the war. “You- you killed her!” He had said. “You! Murderer! I shall never be a father to a murderer! You're no son of mine!” And at that moment, my father seemed alien – ghastly and- and filled with a- a rage. A rage. He- he never loved me. Never loved me. That is all I wished. For love, love.”
xxxRodrigo had, at this point, slumped back to the earth in front of the grave of the man who had never loved him, tears, raw, liquid emotion, streaming down his face – reflected only in intensity by the placid and impartial sun. The man had finished tuning his old guitar and was eerily silent for a short moment before calling out to poor, poor Rodrigo:
xxx“You are quite the storyteller, chico.”
xxxRodrigo did not bear to call out a reply. Such memories bringing themselves upon one immediately certainly have the capability to render a young boy immobile.
xxxThe man brought the guitar to his body and began to play a soft tune, one that drifted and danced through the shifting winds of the plain – it sounded soft and old, as if carried over by a weary stroke of time that wished for a sweet serenity among the air. The tune floated through the infinity that surrounded the two living beings – the plain, the sun, the air, the only things that truly mattered, nothing else in sight. And yet the tune held a soft, saddened quality to it, one that was certainly not matched elsewhere.
xxxRodrigo felt slightly rejuvenated by the tune, and turned his head towards the man. “What is that?” He called out.
xxx“Canción caravana. The caravan song. A lament of shifting trade winds and memories.”
xxx“But you had said you were no merchant!” Rodrigo exclaimed.
xxx“This is not a merchant song,” The man explained as he continued his angelic lullaby. “This is a song of the spirit among the earth and air – an invoker of peace; a calming ballad.”
xxxRodrigo was certainly calmed by the song. It was only here that Rodrigo understood the grandeur of his extensive trek and its rewards. He turned to peer onwards beyond the rudimentary grave marker of his deceased father, and saw only quiet grass, stirred slightly by a playful wind. In fact, he noticed that this expanse of grass, sky, and bright light continued onwards in every direction, never ceasing in intensity, understanding of the true magnitude of such a preserved infinity in tumultuous times. Rodrigo thought of it as beautiful – a true place of the soul. A place, finally, where he could reside in his own thoughts to contemplate, perhaps briefly, whilst not being distracted by reality.
xxx“I must be leaving now, chico.” The man called out from his hill. Rodrigo had noticed how odd he had become – the silhouette of the man appeared softened and hazy, perhaps due to the shifting light. And yet, Rodrigo still did not know of the man or his identity – simply his soothing presence.
xxxThe man ceased in his masterful guitar playing and asked quickly: “Do you wish for a ride back to your village?”
xxx“No, I am fine, but thank you.”
xxxRodrigo was stunned to notice how the man's beautiful horse began its trot onwards without a hint of physical contact or indication. He watched from by the grave of his father as the man and his mountain of memories began to shift back into their ambiguous shadows as they continued onward, onward into oblivion, still shifting from a lovely sun. But the wind carried over the last words of the disappearing man as Rodrigo heard them – barely a whisper.
xxx“All fathers hold their own regrets, Rodrigo.”
xxxIt was certain that the voice was that of the man's – or at least Rodrigo believed. And as he sat down among the golden grass, he stared once again at the grave of his deceased father.
xxx“Alfonso, Alfonso.” Rodrigo read to himself, simply to reassure him that his reality was still safe and comfortable by his side, especially in such an ethereal, spirited world. And then did Rodrigo continue to think, think, the sun stretching high and finally low through its infinite throne in the heavens as he would sit in front of the grave in his world of idealistic pondering. Finally did the young Rodrigo come to a revelation – one that startled him ever so slightly, and yet the stars of an old, country sky settled their dusty lights on the boy and his father.

xxxRodrigo shifted close to the old wooden grave marker and smiled. “Hello,” He said, calmly. “We have not spoken for a while, have we, father?”
xxxThe wind puffed around the boy, but Rodrigo detected something odd among its excited whisper. A voice, perhaps? No – it was a tune: a serene lament. A lament of shifting trade winds and memories. But perhaps it was simply an excited, unpredictable wind.

 

This is an interesting story. Very mind-jogging.
Good job, as always.

 

Though the overall level of the writing is pretty decent I'd like to compain about Rodrigo. Most specifically his dialogue and characterization. Your diction during most of his talking parts and his long story do not portray him well as a character who is a child or as a character with heavy emotions. The words say he has emotions running through him, but the dialogue seemed rather stony and detached. You write excellent aloof adult characters but you need to get farther away from that to portray a young boy who's thoroughly invested in his words. My only problem anywhere here lies in that characterization. Overall it's a good job you've done here though.