Echo of the Conch: Vol. 1

A story long told in this place of children who speak with a conch in hand on empty frontier waste—by now no one knows who first wrote it…

"Give me the conch in your hands, and we won't trouble you further."

The handsome youth and his followers came to the bonfire and said so, toying with the blade in his hand.

On the empty land of exile—this place the boys and girls whispered "the frontier land"—this was their thirtieth night here.

The blade once used to fell trees, cut tough grass, pry fruit, and cast out the unwanted was no longer as sharp as at first; the adults who had tried to rule them by force had lost their breath before even drawing from the scabbard.

Now even the scabbard had been thrown who knows where.

"You really want this conch?"

The boy holding the conch was the smallest among them—"Shorty," they called him.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Does it need a why?" The handsome youth smiled, then said, "Didn't 'we' set the rule, Shorty—whoever holds this conch has the right to speak."

Yes—that was the children's secret pact by the fire, to resist the adults who treated them as servants.

To cast off the identity of exiles and survive in this barren, sorrowful place.

So the children decided to choose one among them—a child who could lead them out of the bind, one of their own who did not fear strength, a clever one—who could hold the conch and be leader of the boys and girls.

The conch they had secretly taken by day in the gaps of the adults' gaze while working by the sea—proof the adults too had flaws.

Like the moment childhood ends when one knows one's parents are not omniscient superhumans: for ordinary children that may be a disillusion; for the youths here it was the best news.

Then…

Ideal order never came—or rather, the cruelty of beasts not yet faded from the children's hearts ran freer with no one to suppress it. If this violence could overthrow everything, why should the one who held it not seize everything with it?

Including the conch… or all that the conch stood for in the children's pact.

"You think you can own this conch?"

"I put in the most work and got the most—and besides, the blade is in my hand now."

"Then you'll become our master."

"Yes. Of course I'll be your master."

"Like those adults at first?"

"Maybe that isn't so bad."

Fine… saying so, the small boy rose from the firelight. His back to the blaze, no one could see his face—

But the handsome youth had the illusion the other was smiling, and for some reason an uncertain premonition of the future… Before this night he had felt everything as surely in his grip as a hilt.

Shorty handed him the conch and turned into the deep woods.

After that night the boy who had held the conch vanished as if he had never been—no one saw him again.