The Boy Who Hated Rainbows

by Josh Honn

When he turned three years old he sat on the moist grass staring at the sun in the backyard like only a three year old would and by the time his parents finally heard his cries and went to pick him up and tell him everything was all right he was blind. It turns out that he wasn't staring at the sun so much as he was staring at a rainbow which is what his parents used thematically to decorate his room before they found out, much to their surprise, that he was not a girl as the doctor told them during the only ultrasound they could afford. As he grew up he had many nannies and they would always, without fail, try to describe to him a rainbow they saw in the sky and he would always, without fail, curse them, screaming, "I hate rainbows!" He went through six nannies in just one year which was not surprising considering he had recently turned 16 and was becoming more and more impatient, angry, and disaffected with a life constantly being explained to him. But it was the seventh nanny that changed everything as one day in the park she started to describe a rainbow to him and he screamed at her and told her he was sick of people trying to see for him and that he wanted to feel and, of course, that he hated rainbows. She felt bad and she was young and probably no more than five or six years older than him and when she looked down in shame she saw what he meant by "feel" and so she started to touch him in the middle of the park, nervously at first, until he told her to close her eyes so that way they could both just feel and so nobody, not even themselves, would see.

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Josh Honn is a graphic designer and a short story writer who lives and works in Chicago. You can find his published and unpublished works at his website, Killer Commas.