The Boy Who Feared Infinity

Who, as a child, was not afraid of the dark? And who, as an adult, does not live in fear of darkness?

By Michael Oren

After reading him the book about the dog that goes searching for his mother and then the one about the Japanese twins who get lost in the woods, Liam’s father said to him, “That’ll do for now. Lights out.” These were the words he dreaded each evening, almost as fiercely as his son. For bedtime stories and tucking him in, he knew, merely inaugurated a process. A sequence of rituals performed in the dark, seemingly meaningless, and lasting well into the night.

“Okay, Dad, do it,” Liam pleaded as he drew the covers over his head. They had to hide him completely, all except a hole for his nose, or else the witch with the hatchet would axe him. He had to face the wall, in case one of the ghosts approached. Yet no blanket or cower could protect him if the closet door opened and the scariest of demons emerged. For that, he needed his father.

And his father needed a break. He longed for a beer and a basketball game and a few hours to unwind while his wife was translating in the basement. He, too, had a hard day at work and could really use some downtime, but Liam wouldn’t oblige. Liam was always frightened.

During the day, at school, where bullies ganged up on the one kid not good at sports, husky, and socially awkward, Liam lived in fear. But nights were his ultimate horror. The dangers that lurked in his room, much less the rest of the house, were far deadlier than the toughs who punched him in class. Being awake was survivable, perhaps, but he was a lot less certain about slumber. Asleep he was defenseless, Liam believed, an easy mark for monsters.

So it was his father’s job to evict them or at least keep them in place. This involved, first, getting down on his hands and knees to peek beneath the mattress. This was home to a hideously demented witch armed with what sounded like a tomahawk, its blade bloodied from the necks of similarly vulnerable boys. Passing his hands over the floorboards, assuring that the space was empty, his father grunted to his feet and proceeded to clean out the corners. This is where the ghosts congregated—just how many, Liam was vague—and waited for their moment to pounce. Shooing them necessitated a flapping of the hands, as if he were waving smoke.

 “And, Daddy, don’t forget,” Liam begged again, though needlessly. His father knew the drill. Knew that while his wife was trying to make some extra cash to help them pay the mortgage, this was his responsibility, the most onerous. The most dispiriting, too, for while purging the room of ghouls and zombies, he asked himself what it’d be like to have a normal son. A boy like he was, no genius maybe, but a kid who knew how to fit in, to handle a ball as well as himself, and not be afraid of the dark. Of anything, really, except for his own father.

After the floor and the corners, only the closet remained. Inside, somehow inserted between the winter clothes and the holiday jackets, the piles of board games with half their pieces missing and the never-used hockey stick, was an immense, snaggle-toothed, and completely hairless cyclops. Where this creature came from Liam’s father couldn’t fathom, probably some black-and-white horror flick. But whatever its origin, the cyclops was Liam’s nightmare. Even the witch and the ghosts kept clear of it. Opening the closet required real courage, so his son claimed, recklessness, and love.

But just as he was reaching for the handle, Liam’s father heard a whisper. “Daddy,” it trembled, “how big is outer space?” 

An usual question, no doubt, for an eight-year-old, but not for Liam. Desperate to deal with his behavioral problems, his parents had taken him to many doctors. Each of them assigned him different letters—ADHD, LD, CPS—but never a complete diagnosis. The only thing they agreed on was the boy’s intelligence. So far off the chart, they said, it wouldn’t even know charts existed.

            “Big,” was his normal-minded reply.

            “Yes, but how big? Where does space start? Where does it end?”

            Liam’s father stewed. “It has no start. No end, either. It just is.”

            “Then where are we?”

            He shrugged, not that his son could see. “In the middle.”

            “But what is the middle of everywhere? What is in the middle of nothing?”

Faintly, he could make out the blanket quivering but was running low on restraint. He longed for that beer, the game. “We just are,” he snapped.

            “And beyond the moon and the sun and the planets?”

            “More moons and suns and planets.”

            “And the more they are,” his son surmised, “the less we are. Until.”

            “Until?”

            “We disappear.”

For the first time ever in Liam’s room, his father felt a chill. He chalked it up to exhaustion, though, and once again reached for the closet. The handle was cold to the touch. But before he could turn it, his son once again asked, “And time?”

“Time? I’ll tell you about time.” He felt himself getting angry. Violating the pledges he made to the doctors, his wife, not to give in to frustrations. Not to tap into the resentments he held about being trapped with this child and these debts and the job that was scarcely that and no more. The life he never would have chosen if his father hadn’t insisted on it, that he’d been too intimidated to reject. “Time, damn it, to go to sleep!”

            “When did it begin? Can it ever stop?

            “Never!” his father barked. “No!”

            The body in the bed was still wrapped in its covers, mummy-like. He imagined for a moment tearing them off and making his son look at the world. “You think ghosts are terrifying,” he’d yell at him. “Watch this!”

            “Before outer space there was always outer space and there always will be, you mean?”

            “You got it, Liam. Hit it right on the head.” He was sighing now, depleted.

            “So, there is no yesterday, today, or tomorrow, then. No this minute or even this second.”

His father moaned. It was a sound he’d never heard before, belly-deep, spooky. It startled him and forced him to face his impatience, to renew his vows to his wife. He wanted suddenly to apologize.

            “We are in no place and no time. We are…”

            “Sorry I snapped at you, Liam,” his father interrupted him. “I shouldn’t’ve. Forgive me.”

But the only reply was a smooth heavy breath and the rise and fall of blanket. “Forgive me,” he said nevertheless, softly so as not to wake him. He turned, Liam’s father, to finally leave the room, aching now only for his own bed, his own shroud of covers. But then he remembered the closet.

The handle twisted and the chill returned, even colder. His breathing lurched in spurts. Liam was beginning to get to him, he sensed, passing on the worst of his fears. Checking himself, chuckling, he bit his lower lip and whisked the door open.

Inside, there was no cyclops, of course. Only the winter clothing and holiday best, the board games and the hockey stick. All appeared in order. Except when, with a breaststroke-like motion, Liam’s father cleared away the junk. Behind it was everything and nothing, now and never. Beyond it was the endless dark.