Loss of Innocence

Darkness of other days

Bob shaw’s short stories are nothing but overlooked masterpieces of the past. These forgotten short stories are crafted extremely well and open a whole new dimension and aspect of thinking and analyzing short stories.

I came to this realization when reading the Light of other days, one of Bob shaw’s best short stories in my opinion. The story starts off with a couple looking around for a new house in the countryside. The eerie silence and mystique as they first enter the countryside represents their new venture into an ideal and quest unknown. As they view different homes, they eventually stumble upon what they believe is an extremely nice home made of a substance called slow glass.

The essence of slow glass is that light takes many years to pass through it, so constant moving images of the past flow across the walls, giving one a reminder, memory, or view of an action from a previous time. This amazing ability makes slow glass rare and allows one to capture the moments from his or her life, with the ability to once reminisce with them later on in life.

Now this encapsulated and breathtaking view of the house intrigues our characters to venture towards it and ask its owner about its sale. As they view the house and its aspects, they see its value and the different characteristics. Often times the protagonists in the story see the family members of the house owners wandering around, but are never noticed by them, causing a sense of uneasiness and questionability about the house. After various talks about budget and wandering around the house, our prospects leave the house and countryside intrigued about the house. They purchase some of the slow glass and then leave the house in a sense of uneasiness at the revelation they soon make.

Now this revelation is one that represents a loss of innocence of our main characters in a very impactful way. Our characters realize that the entire time they were seeing the house owner’s wife and son, they were actually just viewing images of them on the slow glass. The man’s family has been deceased for quite some time and is still present on the glass, but without him. This both represents the fact that the house’s owner was busy and didn’t get to spend time with his beloved family, and that he must live with that grief for the rest of the days they will remain on the glass. It is a constant reminder to himself about the time he didn't devote to his family, and now it’s too late.

The owner loses his innocence to his perception of love and being there for his family as he will regret not spending time with his family for the rest of his life. The glass represents a constant reminder of his loss, and causes the loss of innocence of any visitors. The main characters, or the buyer's, lose their innocence once they find the truth about the looking glass’s amazing sadness despite its uniqueness. They also lose their innocence to grief because they have never seen, dreaded, or been fooled by it’s false sense of time set by the looking glass. All of these different aspects combine to cause the loss of innocence of both the characters, as well as the reader’s perception of grief and the story.

And for the last time,

Special K <3