The kid couldn’t delay any longer. He had been waiting all day. He ran to his room and flung down his backpack. Under his bed was an old, wooden box fit to burst with hundreds of dominos. The kid slid out the box and opened it. He took a second to admire all of the dominos he had collected over the years. Some were old and some were new. The black dots on the oldest ones were almost unseen from the years of use. Then the boy tipped the box over and all of the game pieces fell to the floor. He scooped up half of the pieces and placed them on the table. The other half he left on the floor. Once the boy had divided the dominos in half, he started to assemble the ones on the floor into smaller groups. The boy had a plan for these. He then stood the games pieces on the table up, making sure that they were perfectly in line. Again the boy went back to the dominos on the floor. He started standing the groups of dominos up into lines. Everything was coming together now.

As the lines grew longer, the child became more and more excited. The dominos on the table were in a perfect line overlooking the ones on the floor. The dominos on the floor were coming ever closer to linking with the ones on the table.

The boy gently scooted the last domino into place using caution not to preemptively knock over any other domino. He smiled with delight when they were all in line. With anticipation, the child tipped the first domino. He watched as the lines he worked so hard on began to fall. As the dominos at the bottom were falling, a single line of falling dominos crept its way to the top. Soon, all of the game pieces at the top were set into motion and began dropping as well. The boy watched as the last domino fell.

The kid sat back and looked at the mess of dominos on the floor. He felt almost sad that he had just knocked over the masterpiece that he had worked so hard on, but he also felt content that his hard work wasn’t for nothing. As the dominos had fallen, the boy had been very excited to watch. It was worth it.

The fallen dominos were then scooped up and tossed back in their box. The child closed the lid and the box was pushed back under the bed. The fun was over for now, but the boy knew that he would be able to slide that old, wooden box out from under the bed again before long. The only thing the boy had to think about was what the design of the next game would look like.


















Analysis

I did my allegory on D-Day. The story has a child to represent how childish some leaders can be during times of war. I used dominos to portray the soldiers because of how quickly they fall and how in the end, there is just a mess left. I used the child getting everything ready to show the build up until the actual battle at Omaha Beach. When he looks at the dominos that he’s collected, it symbolically means that all of the soldiers have come to the same location at the same time, and all from different places and different backgrounds.

The dominos on the table represent the Germans and how they had the advantage of height on their side. The Americans and the other countries that fought on the American side were the dominos on the floor and they made their way to the table. The groups of dominos being split up were meant to represent the ships that they came in on. The line of dominos creeping up the side of the table showed how the Americans slowly made their way up the beach. The child gets more and more excited as this is happening to show the level of excitement that the important leaders must have had as they willed their side to win. When the final domino falls, it is meant to show the ending of the battle and how everyone suffered in the end.

The child looking down on the mess of dominos represents the American leaders looking at all the dead soldiers. They feel sorrow for them, but they are also happy to have a foothold in Europe now. The dominos being scooped up and put away for another time shows that there will always be another war and more soldiers to use, the only thing that changes is who we are fighting. This is represented by the child thinking about what the design of his next game will look like.