Bollulo Bay

A short story that I wrote in December. Heavily influenced by Hemingway, it’s only a couple of thousand words so give it a go and let me know what you think in the comments - would be great to get some feedback.

The young boy was alone as he paddled out into the bay. It was early morning and the clouds hung low, masking the mountaintops of Bollulo behind him, bathing the beach in a dull, grey light. The waves were biggest early in the day and he swam furiously, each stroke dragging the boy and his board further from the shore, and further from his problems.

“Why must my mother remarry at all?” the boy wondered aloud. She has my sisters and me for company, do we not give her the love that she needs? We love her more than ever, for she is all that we have now.

When a small wave came, he would kick hard and roll over the top of it. But when the bigger waves hit he took a deep breath and plunged through them, his board like the tip of a spear, slicing an opening into the roaring wall of water.

The night that his father’s fishing boat had returned without him weighed heavy on the boy’s heart. It had limped to the shoreline just down the coast from their home - an empty shell, the hull had taken on much water and was barely afloat. The boy’s father was nowhere to be seen, lost at sea to the calm beneath the waves. No man is an island… unless he’s a buoy, his father used to joke. “Well father, I am only a boy and since you were lost I truly feel like an island”.

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