“Lost” – Monday’s Finish the Story – Flash Fiction

This story was written for Barbara Beacham’s Monday Finish the Story weekly challenge.  Each week, Barbara provides an image and a first sentence, and the task is to complete the story in 100-150 words.  Click on the InLinkz frog below to read others’ stories and, if you’d like, to add your own!

Lost

(1^st sentence + 150 words)

Little did they know when the photographer took their picture that they would find themselves trapped in a painting.  On seeing the photo in the school paper, the students became obsessed with music.

Will was a natural trumpeter.

The problem was the volume.  When his parents fought, they didn’t want him to practice—and there was the new baby.

He loved the physical effort the trumpet demanded.  When the field trip group played together, the music surged, and they felt strong.  Afterward, they were breathless, spent.

They visited the painting.  There were children in it now, faintly visible in the brush strokes, but getting clearer.

Will’s parents shouted nightly, and things crashed against the walls.  The baby cried.  He shut them out, playing.  When they pointed their rage at him, he willed his soul through the metal, up into the air.  His father took the trumpet and stomped.  Will collapsed.

After the funeral, the children pointed at Will, playing in the painting, and shivered in anticipation of joining him.