SHADES
Patricia Parkinson

He was four years old when he spoke to God.

“I was sitting in the sand,” he said, talking to her from the back seat.

They were driving home from a day at the beach. She nodded, watched the traffic, and thought about what she could make for dinner.

“What happened?”

“The sun was really shiny and I asked God, Why did you make the sun so bright?”

She looked at him in the rear view mirror. His face was slick with sunscreen. Flecks of sand glittered on his cheeks. He was her sweet precious boy. He knew all the letters on the flashcards and all their sounds and now he was talking to God. Maybe he’d be a pastor or a missionary. He has a calling, she thought, and felt blessed.

“What did God say?” she asked.

“He said it was so he could see me better,” he looked out the window and squinted. “It hurts my eyes Mommy.”

“We’ll get you some sunglasses,” she said.

He smiled and rubbed his eyes with his tiny fists.

By second grade he was reading novels and wearing sunglasses inside.

“He’s gifted,” his teachers told her.

“He’s light sensitive,” the doctor said.

“Such a clever boy,” she’d say, holding a flashlight on the page while he read to her at night “How do you know those big words?”

“God tells me,” he’d answer, covering his eyes.

She kept the curtains drawn and stored a box of sunglasses in his closet. On Sundays she went to church and thanked the Lord for watching over her son.

For his tenth birthday she gave him a pair of Ray Bans. The kids called him ‘Shades’ and he played in the shadows where the sun didn’t shine.

“God can’t see me in the dark,” he’d whisper.

He grew tall and strong and studied books she didn’t understand. He received scholarships and invitations to universities and wore an eye mask when he slept. At night, she pressed her ear to his door. In tongues, he spoke to God.

On the evening of his graduation, she found him in the closet, his head buried beneath blankets and old clothes. The sunglasses were shattered. Shards lay on the floor next to him.

“It still hurts,” he cried. “Make him stop.”

She held him in her arms, her sweet precious boy, and uncovered his face. It was slick and wet to her touch. She raised her hand to a sliver of light coming through the blinds. Blood dripped from her fingers. She looked at him. Her reflection stared back from the mirrored lenses of his eyes.

© Patricia Parkinson 2004

Patricia Parkinson (helaina2002@yahoo.com) is a newly married mother of two children that make her laugh at herself and other things she once took too seriously. She lives in Langley, British Columbia.

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