THE BOY AND THE SUN

Chicago (USA), 2074

A group of teenagers burst out laughing, stamping their feet and clapping their hands, standing around Jeremy like around a campfire. They're not making fun of him this time, no. They're congratulating him for their victory thanks to him, Jeremy, the blind child of the ancestor people. The seventeen-year-old teenager smiles stupidly, too focused on the hubbub that his peers are making to let himself go too. Young teenagers like him usually hardly get any attention, let alone attention of that kind. Jeremy is unique and fearless. He lost his fear with his eyesight when he was a child. He has always wanted it that way. At this moment when he is being acclaimed by his peers, the world finally sees him through his own eyes.

Soon, Jeremy gets overwhelmed by the joyful cacophony. He feels dizzy from the noise of the group of teenagers and the heat coming from their young bodies. He feels them close to him, very close. Their body heat burns just like the heat of the sun...

'Thanks! Thank you! Thank you!' Jeremy screams, pushing his way through with his hand and his cane. Finally, he can breathe. Jeremy smiles. His life is a revenge, one possibility among so many like his doctor often told him.

Chicago (USA), 2065

'Ms. Ridley, you should be proud of your boy,' the dark-skinned man dressed in a white scrub exclaimed. He held a syringe in his left hand and the skinny little arm of the seven-year-old boy sitting in front of him on the other.

The woman gave the doctor a timid smile without saying anything, then looked down again at her hands folded on her thighs. The silence of the woman annoyed the medical professional who looked alternately at the mother and the boy before gently putting the syringe in the tray. He sat down facing the boy.

'Jeremy,' he began with a broad smile.

The boy turned to the doctor, his head slightly raised towards the ceiling. The child was listening, intently and curiously, his eyelids and lips shut.

'Do you want to see something?' the doctor continued mischievously.

'To see ?!' the boy repeated, amused.

The doctor lifted his right trouser leg to roll it to the level of his knee. The boy's mother remained in shock as the doctor gently grabbed Jeremy's hand to bring it to his bare leg.

'Do you have a prosthetic leg?' the boy asked as he opened his mouth wide, 'Can you run very very fast now?' he continued enthusiastically.

'Not that running very very fast is a useful quality in a hospital, but yes Jeremy, I have a prosthetic leg. I was around your age when I lost my right leg during a war in my home country. I know the smell of blood and burnt human flesh.'

Hearing these words, the little boy's face turned serious and sad.

'I was 38 when I was finally able to afford this prosthesis; I lived the majority of my young years with only one leg,' the doctor continued with a smile, 'You see Jeremy, there are so many possibilities in life, and not just for men. Don't let any life situation decide for you what possibilities can or cannot happen in your life.'

He paused for a moment and glanced at Jeremy's mother, 'There are always a multitude of possibilities, no matter the situation,' he said.

Jeremy remained silent for awhile seemingly in deep reflection.

'Doctor, can I ask you something?' the little boy said.

'Sure,' replied the man sitting up in his seat.

'Are you Black?' the child asked shyly.

The doctor burst out laughing. He crossed his arms over his chest to look at the boy, laughing some more before answering calmly:

'You see Jeremy, I grew up with people's dismissive look on my missing leg and my dark skin most of my young life to eventually grow old in a world where all limbs of the human body can be replaced with prosthesis and having dark skin has become... How can I put it? .... A very good thing. Yes, I'm Black. And how did you find that out?'

'Your accent sounds like my school teacher's accent, and she's Black too, she taught me how to read Braille. She says the more languages ​​I know, the more I'll continue to learn when I grow up,' the boy replied proudly as he sat up in his seat grinning.

'Oh! Your school teacher's right!' the man said with a chuckle as Jeremy started chuckling, 'And I see that you're very observant through listening and touching, and you can see through people's appearances as well,' he continued, smiling at the boy, 'These are great qualities Jeremy, many people lack, especially in a world like ours.'

The doctor turned again to the boy's mother and added with a smile, 'You see Ms. Ridley, you should be proud of your boy.'

The woman nodded, giving the medical professional a grateful look before turning her motherly gaze to her son and exclaimed with a smile, 'Oh yes, I'm very proud of my little boy.'

Since the incident that had taken away her boy's eyesight, the woman felt the daggers of guilt in her chest every single day. Each time her blind son no longer reflected her sighted mother's gaze, she felt the original bond that united them fading away. He had always been the most precious jewel in her life and he had only her to survive until adulthood. She had cried a lot after being told that day: 'Madam, your son's survived. His condition is stable now. Fortunately, you acted quickly and we'll be able to reconstruct the skin of his face, chest, and arms. But...I'm sorry...your son will never be able to see again.'

The mother's cry of guilt was so deep and piercing that it invaded the whole building, then came the tears like torrential rains, followed by total darkness. Silence, guilt, shame, and the judgement of other mothers and their sighted children. She was constantly being told on the news those days, in the media, everywhere, that her child could never be successful in this world since the discovery of a stupid gene. Why did she always do everything wrong? What could she reply if one day at school, in the supermarket, or on the street waiting for the green light, another mother ever asked her the question as to why her son couldn't see like "other normal" children?

Jeremy walks away from the group guided by his cane, the room filled with the teenagers' screams and laughter.

Chicago (USA), 2063

A four- or five-year-old boy watches curiously at his mother clinging onto her phone as she tossed and turned while listening intently to the person on the other end of the device. She was anxious, the small child could tell, just by looking at his mother. She didn't like what she was being told, but she had to bear it and keep listening. The little boy's gaze swept around the room, looking for something more entertaining than watching his mother. The glass door! His mother always forbade him to go anywhere near it "because of the sun". The sun! The marvel in primary colours, far above in the sky that brought so much joy and mystery to his drawings. At school, he had learnt that without the sun there could be no life or colour on Earth. Yet, adults feared it so much.

The boy kept his gaze fixed on his mother waiting for the moment when she would turn her back so that he could reach out to the glass door; the sun. Lost in her conversation, the woman turned her back to the glass door and her son for a few seconds. The little boy seized the opportunity to move slowly towards the light outside. To his surprise, the glass door wasn't locked. Like everywhere else those days, at school, in the shops, his mother always kept all the doors and windows locked, but not that day.

The sun! In an instant, an intoxicating warmth surrounded him. First, pleasant like his hot chocolate in the morning, then very quickly burning, unbearable. The little boy felt like a club falling on his head and a supernatural force pushing him onto the ground. His body, weighed down by an intolerable pain, suddenly collapsed as a dark veil covered his face. He knew he had to scream at that moment otherwise the sun would gulp him all down. However, no sound came out of his mouth as he tried to move his lips.

'Jeremy!'his mother's voice cried out before he passed out.