Kids: Jimmy and the Sunspot

As he was talking to his dad about it, about a week before the eclipse, his dad said, "Jimmy, would you like me to stay home that day and we'll watch the eclipse together?" He said, "Yeah!" So he said, "Okay, you stay home from school, I'll stay home from work, and we will have an eclipse day." And so the day came, and Jimmy's mom took the kids off to school, except for Jimmy, and dad stayed home. And Jimmy was poking holes in all different kinds of pieces of paper because he knew that if you hold it out— and they tried it with a light and it works— and you You hold out the hole, the piece of paper, and the light shines through the hole, and whatever's blocked out of the light, it shows on the ground in the shadow. And so Jimmy tried, you know, pieces of paper, thicker paper, cardboard, and he was outside testing them all out. "Yeah, they all work." And so he's ready for the eclipse to come. And finally his dad comes out and says, "Has it happened yet?" And he's like, "No, no, it hasn't happened yet. Dad, you'll know when it happens 'cause it'll start to get dark. It's actually gonna get dark in the middle of the day." He said, "Oh, okay. Well, let me know when it starts to happen." So Jimmy comes running in the house later, "Dad, it's happening, it's happening! There's a little bit eaten out of the sun." So his dad comes out and he takes a piece of paper and Jimmy takes a piece of paper and they're there and they're watching as slowly but surely the moon is moving in front of the sun and they can see it reflected on this shadow on the ground. And Jimmy's dad says, "Now Jimmy, you know you don't look at the sun." He said, "Of course, Dad, that's why we have the paper." He said, "Yeah, that's right. Okay, so let's just keep doing it." And they're just waiting and watching and then the phone rings in the house. His dad says, "Ah, Jimmy, you know what? That guy was supposed to call about an hour ago. It's really important. I'll just go take the call and I'll come right back out." Okay, Dad. And so his dad runs in the house and Jimmy's watching the ground until pretty soon he's looking around him and it's really dark. It's not dark like nighttime, but it's really quite dark. And he looks on the ground and there's just— now there's just a black dot with a little bit of a ring around it, kind of fuzzy, and it's hard to see. And he thinks, it's so dark, I wonder if I could just take a little peek at the sun. I mean, the moon's completely blocking it out. It won't hurt my eyes if I just look up at it. And so Jimmy looks up and then looks down and thinks, "Yeah, it was like a big ring of fire in the sky. Oh, look at that, it is, it's like a big ring in the sky." And he's just staring at this fuzzy ring in the sky with this black dot in the middle. And as he's watching it, he doesn't notice as slowly the moon keeps moving. And he just notices, "Oh, it looks like the ring has a diamond on the end of it now." Ooh, it's getting bigger! Wow! And pretty soon he goes, "Ah! I'm looking at the whole sun! Oh my goodness!" And he looks down and, "Oh no!" Everywhere he looks there's this big black dot in the middle of everything. You ever looked at a light and you get that big residual image of the light in the middle of your vision? And he's looking around and he goes, "Oh no! I've gone blind in one part of my eyes! And I can't get rid of it! Oh no!" I better go for a walk. I don't want Dad to see me blinking like this. And so he thinks, I'll just walk around the block and I'll blink my eyes a lot and I'll see what happens and see if I can get rid of this thought. So he's walking along and he gets to the first corner and he turns the corner and then he's walking and out of the corner of his eye he sees Andrew. Andrew was a homeless man who often slept right there underneath that bench in that part of the park that was there by their house. And he knew Andrew's name because sometimes they'd taken sandwiches to Andrew or sometimes leftover tea or whatever. And so he knew his name was Andrew and And as he was walking and he thought, "Oh, there's Andrew sleeping under that bench," he got this idea. "Hey, I wonder if I put the black dot over the top of Andrew, he would just disappear. Be like he didn't even exist. I'm gonna try it." And so as he got close to the park bench and noticed that Andrew today wasn't underneath the bench but he was on top of the bench sleeping, he just stopped and he faced him and he looked right at him and put the black dot over the top of Andrew. And sure enough, he disappeared. But then something really strange happened. It was like a movie coming on. Andrew appeared in the middle of the black dot, and he sat up, and he looked at Jimmy, and he said, "I could really use a hug, Jimmy." Whoa! And he looked away, and he thought, "What? He wants a hug? Andrew wants a hug? I've never hugged Andrew before. Oh, I guess I can give him a hug." And so he walks over there, and as he gets Just about to wrap his arms around Andrew, he realizes he's asleep again. Oh well, he wraps his arms and squeezes him. Oh, what are you doing? What are you doing? I'll move, I'll move. Don't hurt me. Don't drag me away. I'm fine. No, no, no, sorry, Andrew. Sorry, I thought you wanted a hug. What? What? Oh, Jimmy, what are you doing? Well, I thought you wanted a hug. Oh, well, I guess I did. Thanks, Jimmy. Okay. And so he keeps walking and he's blinking. He's still got this big dot and he gets all the way back home. And he just— it's still there. So he goes into his room, and a few hours later he hears his mum call, "Time for tea, kids!" And he knows if he doesn't come for tea, something's gonna happen. They're gonna come and find out what's wrong with him. So he just goes to tea, and he says, "I'm just not gonna look at anyone. I'm just gonna look in the middle of the table and just eat." But as he's there trying to cut his food, when he looks at his food, it's just gone. Black dot goes over the top of his plate. So he has to look out there and cut his food. And so he can see it just under here, but if he looks at it, it disappears. And sometimes he looks over there while he's cutting his food, And he's looking out there in the middle of the table, cutting his food, and his mom says, "Jimmy, you've nearly finished your plate. Do you want some more mashed potatoes?" He says, "Yeah, that'd be good, Mom, thanks." And nobody's said anything yet that, you know, he can't see in the middle of his vision. And so she leans out over and she takes a spoonful of potatoes and she goes to put it on his plate, and as she does, she goes right in the middle of the black dot. Boom! The potatoes freeze in the middle of the air. Phew! And his mom's face is right there in the black dot, and she just turns and looks at him, and says, "I know the plans I have for you, Jimmy, to give you a hope and a future." He looks back down at his plate, just eats in the dark for a minute. "What was that about? I'm gonna go to bed. I'm tired." "It's only 6 o'clock." "I know, but I'm just tired because, you know, the eclipse, it was a big experience." "Okay, good night, Jimmy." He goes into bed and he thinks, "What's going on? I think I'm going a little crazy. I'm seeing strange things." The next morning he wakes up and he thinks, "No dot, no dot, please, no dot." Oh my God. And so he makes it all the way through breakfast without anyone asking any weird questions about why he's looking in strange places, and he gets out and he goes to get on the bus, and he's getting really good at seeing what he needs to do without actually looking right at it. And he gets on the bus, and now he's got to struggle because he's got to find a seat. And so he just quickly scans the seats, and as he does, he sees an empty seat next to Sally, and there's always one next to Sally, and he just glances. Is it really Sally? Boom. And she goes into the black dot. She looks up at him and she says, "Jimmy, I'd love it if you'd sit next to me and would you talk to me?" Yeah, okay. He walks in, he sits down next to Sally, and they're sitting there riding the bus to school and they have typical conversation that kids have on the bus. He says, "Hi." "Hi." "What are you doing today?" "Going to school. What are you doing?" Yeah, going to school. What are you having in your lunch? Two sandwiches. Mom always gives me two sandwiches. I only need one, but she always gives me two. Yeah. What are you having in your lunch? Um, yeah, um, some pizza. I'm gonna warm it up in the microwave. Oh, okay. Okay, well, we're at school. See ya. Jimmy? Yeah? Thank you for sitting next to me. And thank you for talking to me. Well, I thought you wanted me to sit next to you and talk to you. I always want somebody to sit next to me and talk to me, but nobody ever does. Thank you. You're welcome. Jimmy gets off the bus and he makes his way down to the playground. He's not supposed to be on the playground before school technically, but some of the kids do. And he sees Shane swinging on the swing, and Shane is always there really early, and kids know that Shane just comes to school early and sometimes stays really late and doesn't like to go home. And Shane's swinging on the swing, and for some reason Jimmy just looks at him, and the dot goes right over Shane in the middle of a backswing, and he's right up in the in the air and he just freezes. He looks over at Jimmy, says, Jimmy, I haven't had any breakfast this morning, really hungry. Start swinging again. Oh, I got an extra sandwich. So he walks over there and he says, uh, hey Shane, um, you want a sandwich? Oh wow, he hops off the— he said, yeah, I'd love to have a sandwich because yeah, I didn't have any breakfast this morning. He said, yeah, you said that already. I did not, I haven't talked to you yet today, but Well, yeah, okay, well, you can have the sandwich. Oh, thanks, Jimmy, that's really cool. See you later. And Shane runs off, and then Jimmy realizes, I'm on the playground all by myself, and there's Mr. Ranky, the cranky teacher, coming at me. And so he makes his way back out to the path, and he starts walking down the path, and he thinks, okay, I've gotta just act like I wasn't on the playground. Don't say anything wrong, just don't get in trouble with Mr. Ranky. And so when he walks up, he just looks up at Mr. Ranky. Hi, Mr. Ranky. And he just freezes. Mr. Ranky, right in the dot. And he says, Jimmy, I'm not really a mean teacher. I just want somebody to love me. Um, I love you, Mr. Ranky. Oh, Jimmy, thank you. I love you too. And you know, as Jimmy went to class that day and the spot faded while he was in class, and he got on the bus that afternoon and he went and he sat down next to Sally, and as he was sitting there and they were riding home, Jimmy just had this thought he'd been thinking all day as the dot had faded. And his thought was this: I don't want to ever stop seeing people the way that I saw them. After looking at the sun.