Look into the future

“I be need!”
“What do you need dear.” When will he learn to reference back and give me a clue!
“I be need goggles.”
“Goggles?”
“No!”
“No?”
“No. I be need glasses.”
“Glasses?”
“No!”
“No?”
“No. I be need shades!”
“Shades?”
“No. I be need eye fingies.”
“Eye thingies?”
“No. I be need……binoculars.”
“Binoculars?”
“Yes.”

I look at my son. Four years ago there were several items, ordinary items, that he was unable to name.

The few that I particularly recall were television, microscope, binoculars and telephone. He refused to name anything that could remotely be called food. All of them were off his radar and therefore of no interest.

The expert tester encouraged him to point at the pictures he chose, the ones he was unable to name. He was unable to point at the pictures for fear that his finger tip might accidentally brush the texture, as paper was poison. Instead he broke silence and read out the fine print on the margins of the pages, their reference numbers and letter codes, a gesture that struck me as generous to a fault.


“Well, you know, I don’t think we have any binoculars dear.” They were given away, just like so many other things that were grouped together in the category of ‘boring,’ or in the alternative category of ‘items of torture.’
“Oh.” He looks a little crest fallen and I await the meltdown. Moments later he skips away, as happy as a lamb, or a sheep on speed.


He returns shortly thereafter, clutching a cardboard tube and dives into the kitchen drawer where his magical fingers tackle an ‘item of torture,’ the seleotape dispenser with it’s little serrated edge, the one sure to slash jugulars.

I step forward but he bellows me away, “I do it all my myself!”

And indeed he does!

“See! Ta dah!” he thrusts them towards me, less than an inch from my nose, “dey are beed super spy binoculars!”

I feel a little light headed as I watch him snatch them away, the binoculars of torture and place them over his eye sockets, the most sensitive part of his face. He hesitates and both hands quiver, his eyebrow arch to make more room until miraculously his vision is obscured by cardboard rings, surely the most superlative day in the universe.

In the bathroom, I step over the unraveled mounds of toilet paper, another mountain conquered.