Sun Catcher

In the small kitchen with whitewashed earthen walls a woman and her child ate in silence. Jace, the boy child, scooted closer to his plate so that the juice of his lunch of squash and corn would only splash on his plate. His mother smiled at him and nodded her agreement, a beam from the sun catching her face.

"Mother? May I be excused?" he asked, his voice sweet to his mother's ears.

"Of course. It is time to chase the sun."

From the adobe dwelling Jace, limped out to the patio. It had been whitewashed only a month ago and the noon day soon blazed off its stucco surface. Jace squinted and tried to look at the sun. "It doesn't look right," he thought, "Not like I thought it should." But he knew where it would have to rest. He would chase it beyond the pump house beneath the rusted windmill.

He pused hard off on his good foot, whincing slightly as he skipped. Sweat trickled down his neck within minutes of his trek. Because of a shriveled foot, he had not been able to climb the steep cliff before. But today he sailed up to the ridge with ease, as though he had cracked the code of some force that held him back in the past. He stood a moment perfecting his balance and catching his breath.

Below him the earth parted into a chasm. He saw the sun below him. It would be easy to catch now. From the chasm it radiated a cool light, more pleasant than when it was burning the desert earth. Jace smiled and turned back to look at his mother. She seemed suddenly excited. But his quarry was in easy reach. He leaped from the cliff to catch the sun.