It was the third time the school had called me this month. Sitting opposite to my son’s homeroom teacher, I felt like a child myself. Mrs. John was a middle-aged, stern looking woman. She was exceptionally good with the kids. I’ve never had a problem with her. Unfortunately, she had many with me.
“Miss Davis,” She gave me a disapproving look, “you need to pay more attention to your son. There’s only so much we can do here. He is a bright child, but his recent drawings are disturbing. Honestly, they give me the chills. I don’t even want to imagine from where he gets his inspiration.”
She placed three drawings on the table in front of me. One was a picture of a man holding an axe while a child lay on the floor with a detached head. Caption said, “Why won’t you leave me alone?” In the second picture, a man was holding a pillow on a child’s face. This time the caption said, “Just go to sleep already.” The last one was a picture of a graveyard with ten headstones. This time the caption said, “Everyone I love is resting peacefully.”
That wasn’t the only disturbing thing, though. He had used dark tones of red, yellow, and black to paint them. There were other strange things scribbled on the margins—words I couldn’t fully understand. Yet, the words death and quiet stood out like flashing neon signs.
I took a moment to take it in. I could understand where the teacher was coming from, but I didn’t know what to say. I promised to talk to Danielle about it. Hoping I’d be able to get an answer from him that would help us deal with his strange choice in art.
Later that night, I sat my son down to have a talk. At eight years old, he was old enough to know better. I wanted to give him a chance to explain. “Danny, I talked to Mrs. John today…”
“Is it about the drawing again?” he said before I could complete my sentence.
“Yes, so what do you have to say about it?” I decided not to beat about the bush since he was expecting this talk.
“It’s no big deal. I saw those things in the mirror and thought they were cool.” He was nonchalant about it.
“You saw them in the mirror?”
“Yeah.”
“What mirror?” To say his answer had baffled me would be the understatement on the century. My son might have a deeper problem than I realized, if he was seeing these disturbing things in a mirror.
“You know, that cool looking one you bought last month. With the golden frame.” He was talking about the antique mirror hanging in our living room. “The guy in the mirror said if you love someone, make sure they stay comfortably quiet.” I looked at him, speechless. “Mommy, I love you the most.” A shiver ran down my spine as I stared at him in horror.
© 2020 Fizza Younis. All Rights Reserved.
Between The Pages Of A Book 