He strode over to a portable stereo, drew a cassette from his pocket and inserted it into the tape deck. He picked up the attached headphones and walked over to the cot. For a few seconds he looked down at Baby Kelvin sleeping quietly in the semi-darkness.
Skell reached down and snugly placed the headphones over his son’s head. He went back to the stereo, pressed the ‘play’ button and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Kelvin was an academic whiz. After a mere two years of secondary school, he went off to uni for two years. He then briefly came back to secondary school to wrap up a few required courses.
It was here that his musical project Tonos de Gris came to the fore. Kelvin was an outstanding musician, able to perfectly play back any song after a single listen. His prowess extended into the recording sphere as well, evinced by his helming of the ‘Guitarra Solitaria’ sessions at Cat Piss Studios.
As affable a fellow as Kelvin was, friends who came by the house were often unnerved by the sharp glare of the Sergeant Major. Anyone who fell under the officer’s disdainful gaze could only help but wonder why.
“Yeah, we’re furley teenagers who play that loud rock music with your son. Are we a ‘bad influence’?”
In time, Kelvin’s friends all went their separate ways off to uni. Kelvin himself was a 19-year-old already finishing grad school.
He went off to see the world, and for many years followed his guru around the Subcontinent — to his father’s dismay, no doubt.
Today, Kelvin is a successful engineer, polyglot, humanist, and international problem solver.
O what kind of monster hath the Sergeant Major wrought?
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