Mystery Lights

Chapter 4

Third Person POV

Saint's school day went smoothly enough. Whenever Saint experienced the flashing lights, he would let Perth take over the note taking for him.

At the end of the school day, Perth drove Saint back home.

"Neither my mom nor my dad are home yet," Saint said, "I don't see any of their cars in the driveway."

"They might have parked their cars inside your detached garage," Perth remarked.

"They don't usually do that," Saint replied. "Would you like to stay and have dinner with me? I can ask Amelia to set a place for you at table."

Perth wondered who Amelia was but refrained from asking Saint.

"Thank you for your offer, sir, but I don't think it would be okay for me to have dinner with you," Perth politely declined Saint's invitation.

Saint's eyes widened. "Why are you calling me 'sir' all of a sudden. And why would it not be okay for you to stay and have dinner with me."

"One, because you are my boss, and second, because you are my boss," Perth replied, already walking towards his own car which he had parked on one side of the wide and spacious driveway. "Please just tell your parents that I have gone home and that I will be back tomorrow at the same time that I arrived here this morning."

Perth and Mr. Suppapong had an agreement that Perth would be paid for his personal assistant/driver services on a monthly basis with a five day work week and if ever he was needed on a weekend he would be paid an overtime rate on those days.

"Very well," said Saint with a frown, not bothering to hide his disappointment.

On second thought, perhaps it was best to establish a boss-employee relationship with his driver. Sometimes problems came up when the boss-subordinate line was crossed.

Perth drove himself home in his second hand old model car. He wished for the hundredth time that his parents had enough money to help him through college so that when he graduated he would be able to find a respectable and higher paying job than a mere personal assistant/driver. And then with the higher pay, he would be able to afford a brand new car.

When he got home, he found his mom in the kitchen already preparing the ingredients for dinner.

"What are you cooking, mom?" Perth asked, after kissing his mom on the cheek.

"I'm making some garlic shrimp in coconut milk and bell peppers and eggplants and bamboo shoots," his mom replied.

"Let me take care of peeling the shrimps," Perth offered, removing the large plastic bowl that contained the shrimps from the sink.

He took another plastic bowl from one of the lower kitchen cabinets and used it to transfer the peeled shrimps.

"So how was your first day of work?" Perth's mom asked.

"It wasn't bad," Perth replied, "I only had to drive the student from home to university and back, and while at the university I had to accompany him inside the classroom to help him with note taking whenever he had his on and off episodes of blindness."

"That condition sounds a bit strange to me," Perth's mom remarked. "Have his parents found out yet what's causing it?"

"If I remember right, he has an appointment with an ophthalmologist this coming Friday," Perth replied.

"And are you accompanying him to his doctor's appointment?" Perth's mom asked.

"I don't know," Perth replied. "I will have to wait till Thursday to find out if he will be needing me the next day to accompany him. There's a chance that his mom will be the one who will accompany him."

"The coconut milk is boiling now," Perth's mom announced.

Perth dropped the peeled shrimps into the pot of boiling coconut milk which had crushed garlic and pieces of ginger roots in it. Then his mom dropped in the cut up red bell peppers and  eggplants and bamboo shoots.

The jasmine rice had already been cooked earlier and was ready to be served.

Perth and his mom were not expecting his father to come home during the weekdays. His father was working as a live in driver for a businessman banker who was also into the money market and stocks.

After dinner, Perth told his mom to go ahead and retire for the night. He was going to take care of washing the dishes and putting them away after.

Perth knew that his mom would be tired by now because she worked as a sales lady in a department store and she was on her feet all day.

The following days, Tuesday and Wednesday, went uneventfully. But on Thursday morning, Mr. Suppapong asked Perth if he could accompany Saint the following morning, Friday, to Saint's doctor's appointment. Both he and his wife were not available to bring their son to his medical appointment.

Saint's appointment was for nine o'clock so Perth had to be at their residence at eight o'clock to give themselves an hour's allowance to get to his doctor on time.

The eye consult took more than hour because of several tests that Saint had to undergo, including an MRI.

After the ophthalmologist received the result of all the tests, he looked at Saint intently. He wanted to ask Saint some personal questions but decided to just write a referral for him to see a psychologist.

"I have gone through the results of all your lab works and especially the MRI," the ophthalmologist said to Saint, "there are no findings to indicate that you have had an eye injury or an eye defect. You said that these episodes of blindness happened suddenly during a field trip to a forest a few days ago. And you said that there wasn't any unusual events that happened during your field trip. I recommend a psychology consult.  I'm not saying that you may have a psychological problem. Don't take it wrongly. I just would like to rule out any possibility that your intermittent vision loss might have been caused by some past deep emotional trauma that you're not even aware of or might have already forgotten."

Saint nodded as he took the papers being handed to him by the ophthalmologist. One of the papers had the name and address and contact number of the psychologist that he needed to see.

Saint tried not to show his anxiety as Perth drove him back to his house. 

Saint had requested a leave of absence from his teachers the day before, which turned out to be a good idea because he didn't think that he would be able to concentrate on his lessons for the rest of the day.

Saint knew for sure that a trip to the psychologist would open up all his old emotional wounds and his life from then on would never be the same again.