Pride 2: Too Small to See (Patreon)

“You ready?” James asked.

He picked up his crossbody bag from the arm of the couch and slipped the strap over his shoulder. Across the room, Eric sat near the door, pulling on his shoes and tying the laces tighter than they needed to be.

“Yeah,” Eric replied. He stood and grabbed his phone from the table. “Let’s go.”

Neither of them moved right away.

This would be their first Pride together. It was Eric’s first time attending one at all, and he still wasn’t entirely sure what had possessed him to invite his father. The question had come out almost casually over the phone a few weeks earlier, before he had enough time to reconsider it.

James had surprised him by saying yes.

They had always been close. James had raised Eric to believe there was very little he could say that would make his father love him any less. Still, coming out had felt different. It was not like admitting he had broken something or failed a class. It was revealing something about himself that could not be fixed, taken back, or explained away if James reacted badly.

But James had not reacted badly.

That was almost what made Eric nervous.

His father had simply nodded, thanked him for telling him, and asked whether he wanted pizza for dinner. There had been no anger, no awkward speech, and no sudden distance between them. James treated the whole thing as though Eric had told him something ordinary.

Eric wanted to believe that meant complete acceptance. Sometimes, though, he wondered whether his father was only being polite. Whether there were thoughts James had decided not to say out loud.

Now they were standing in a rented apartment only a few blocks from the parade route, dressed and ready to walk directly into a crowd filled with rainbow flags, music, drag queens, shirtless men, families, activists, and thousands of people who were not going to make Eric’s sexuality easy to ignore.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Eric asked.

James looked toward him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know.” Eric adjusted the hem of his shirt. “It might be out of your comfort zone.”

A small smile appeared on James’s face.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” he said. “I didn’t travel forty-five minutes on that hot-ass train for nothing.”

Eric laughed despite himself.

James stepped toward the door and gave his son a light pat on the shoulder as he passed.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s head out.”

They entered the hallway and waited for the elevator. Eric watched the numbers above the doors slowly climb toward their floor while muffled music drifted up from the street below. Even through the building’s walls, he could hear the distant thump of bass, bursts of cheering, and the occasional whistle.

James glanced at him. “You nervous?”

“A little.”

“About the crowd?”

Eric hesitated. “About everything.”

James nodded as if he understood more than Eric had actually said.

The elevator arrived with a soft chime. The doors opened, and they stepped inside together.

As they descended, the music grew louder. By the time the elevator reached the lobby, they could hear voices gathering outside and feel the vibration of the bass beneath their feet.

James adjusted the strap of his bag.

Eric took one last breath.

Then the doors opened.

Bright sunlight poured through the glass entrance ahead of them. Beyond it, the entire street had been closed to traffic and transformed into a moving river of colour. Rainbow flags hung from balconies and storefronts. People crowded the sidewalks in bright clothes, glitter, face paint, and costumes. Music blasted from somewhere farther down the block, competing with laughter, chanting, and the excited roar of thousands of conversations happening at once.

For a moment, Eric stayed near the entrance.

James stopped beside him.

“Well,” he said, looking out at the crowd. “You weren’t kidding.”

Eric studied his father’s face, searching for discomfort or judgment.

Instead, James smiled.

“Looks like a party.”

He pushed open the door and held it for Eric.

Together, they stepped out onto the closed-off street.Eric walked beside his dad as they made their way through the crowd. James kept pointing out things neither of them had ever encountered together before, not with judgment, but with the open curiosity of someone taking in a new place.

A man passed them wearing bright blue eyeshadow, sharp eyeliner and glitter along his cheekbones. James leaned closer to Eric.

“That probably took him longer than it took us to get here.”

Eric laughed. “Definitely longer than it took you.”

A few steps later, they passed two shirtless men holding hands, their shoulders painted in matching rainbow colours. Farther down the street, an older man walked through the crowd completely naked except for a pair of running shoes and a small backpack.

James stared for a second.

“Well,” he said. “At least he won’t have to worry about getting mustard on his shirt.”

“Dad,” Eric muttered, trying not to laugh.

“What? I’m looking at the positives.”

Eric shook his head, but the tension in his chest began to loosen.

Still, another feeling had started to settle inside him.

It was not embarrassment. It was not even nervousness anymore. His father was here, walking beside him as though this were any other day they had spent together. James did not look uncomfortable or ashamed. If anything, he seemed more relaxed than Eric did.

The feeling was bigger than that.

Eric felt small.

Surrounded by thousands of people who were like him in one way or another, he had expected to feel seen. Instead, he felt almost invisible. Everywhere he looked, people seemed louder, brighter and more confident than he had ever allowed himself to be. They wore what they wanted. They held hands without checking who was watching. They laughed openly and moved through the crowd as though they belonged there.

Eric had spent so much of his life trying not to attract attention that he no longer knew what to do now that he was standing in a place where hiding was not required.

He kept close to James as the crowd pressed around them.

“Hey, look at that,” James said.

He nudged Eric’s arm and pointed toward a booth decorated with signs for parents of gay children. Photographs covered the front of the table, showing families at weddings, graduations and previous Pride celebrations.

Before Eric could respond, James headed toward it.

A middle-aged man behind the table greeted him with a smile, and the two quickly fell into conversation. Eric remained a few feet away, listening at first.

“My son came out a couple of years ago,” James said.

Eric glanced over.

He had heard his father say the words before, but never to a stranger. There was no hesitation in his voice. No lowered volume. He said it as simply as he might have said that Eric was a photographer or that he lived in another city.

The man behind the table asked James something Eric could not hear. His father nodded, then looked back at him.

“That’s him right there.”

James smiled when he said it.

Eric looked away before his father could see how much those few words affected him.

Another booth nearby caught his attention. It was covered in small Pride-themed trinkets, handmade jewellery, painted stones and resin ornaments. Eric wandered toward it while his father continued talking.

He picked up a smooth stone coated in clear resin. Thin ribbons of colour had been poured across its surface, forming a rainbow that seemed to shift when he turned it beneath the sunlight.

Eric flipped it over.

A sentence had been written across the bottom in small black letters.

Don’t make yourself small for the convenience of others.

He read it twice.

Around him, the crowd continued to move. People brushed past his shoulders, laughing and talking, each voice blending into the next until they became one enormous sound.

Eric closed his fingers around the stone.

For reasons he could not explain, the words made his stomach tighten.

He had spent years doing exactly that. Making himself quieter. Easier. Less noticeable. He had reduced entire pieces of himself so other people would never have to feel uncomfortable around him.

He wondered how small a person could make himself before there was nothing left for anyone to see.

“You like that one?”

Eric looked up.

The woman behind the table smiled at him.

“Yeah,” he said, turning the stone over again. “I think I do.”

Behind him, James laughed at something the other father had said.

Eric glanced back at him, then down at the message resting in his palm.

The stone suddenly felt heavier than something so small should have.“Well, what do you think?” the woman behind the table asked.

Eric looked down at the stone again.

The message was kind. Encouraging, even. It was the sort of thing he might have shared online or told someone else who needed to hear it. Holding it in his own hand, though, made the words feel more personal than he wanted them to.

Too close to home.

He turned the stone over once more, watching the coloured resin catch the sunlight.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “Maybe I’ll come back.”

He carefully set it down in the same place he had found it.

“Great work, though.”

“Thank you,” the woman replied with a smile. “Enjoy the parade.”

Eric nodded and stepped away from the booth.

As soon as he turned his back, the pressure in his chest eased slightly. He told himself it was only a stone. A small souvenir with a nice sentence written underneath it. There was no reason to let it get to him.

Still, the words remained in his mind as he made his way back toward his father.

James was still speaking with the man at the parents’ booth, listening closely while the man pointed to one of the pamphlets spread across the table. Eric slowed as he approached, catching only the end of the conversation.

“It makes a difference just showing up,” the man said.

James nodded. “That’s what I figured.”

Eric stopped beside him.

“Hey,” he said, glancing toward the parade route. “Maybe we should go find a spot. These things get crowded.”

“Oh, perfect idea.” James turned back to the man and offered his hand. “It was nice chatting with you.”

“You too,” the man replied. Then he looked at Eric. “Have a good Pride.”

“Thanks,” Eric said.

James picked up one of the pamphlets from the table and tucked it into his crossbody bag before joining his son.

The two headed back into the flow of people, moving toward the section of the street where the crowd had already begun gathering behind the barriers.

Eric glanced back once at the nearby vendor booth.

From where he stood, the resin stone was almost impossible to pick out among all the other trinkets. Just another small object on a crowded table.

Then someone stepped between them, and it disappeared from view.

“Everything all right?” James asked, noticing Eric’s hesitation.

“Oh, yeah. For sure,” Eric replied, pulling himself out of his own head.

“You were right,” James said as they approached the parade route. “Looks like space is getting scarce around here.”

The crowd had filled nearly every available section of the sidewalk. People stood behind metal barriers, on benches, along the edges of planters and anywhere else they could get a view. Music blasted from speakers farther down the street, the bass heavy enough that Eric could feel it beneath his shoes.

“What?” he asked.

“I said space seems limited,” James tried again, raising his voice.

Before Eric could respond, the crowd erupted into cheers.

The first parade float appeared at the end of the street, covered in rainbow streamers and surrounded by dancers. Phones rose into the air, blocking Eric’s view as everyone pressed forward at once.

James immediately joined in. He raised both arms over his head and began clapping along with everyone else, grinning as the float came closer.

Eric smiled at the sight of him.

He had spent so much time worrying that his father would be uncomfortable that he had never considered the possibility that James might enjoy himself more than he did.

For the first few minutes, Eric tried to take everything in. The dancers, the costumes, the music and the people waving from the float were unlike anything he had experienced before.

But the crowd kept tightening around him.

Someone bumped him from behind. Another person squeezed between him and James, forcing them a little farther apart. A shirtless man brushed against Eric’s shoulder, followed by someone pressing against his back as the crowd shifted again.

Under different circumstances, being surrounded by shirtless men might have been interesting.

Here, it was becoming unbearable.

Every few seconds, another elbow caught him or another body pushed him off balance. The air smelled of sweat, sunscreen, perfume and alcohol. The music was so loud that it no longer sounded like music. It had become a constant pounding inside his chest.

“Dad?” Eric called.

James did not hear him. His attention was fixed on the parade.

“Dad?”

Eric reached toward him, but several people moved between them. James was still close enough to see, his head and raised arms visible above the shoulders surrounding Eric, but reaching him felt strangely impossible.

“I’m going to find somewhere higher up,” Eric shouted. “Do you want to come?”

“Huh?” James turned slightly, though his eyes remained on the dancers passing in front of him.

“I said I’m going to find a better spot.”

“Oh.” James nodded, clearly catching only part of what Eric had said. “Sure, Eric. Don’t go far.”

Eric waited for him to follow.

James turned back toward the street as the crowd cheered again.

“Dad, I meant together.”

The words disappeared beneath the music.

Eric tried to push through the people separating them, but another surge moved through the crowd. Someone’s shoulder struck him, sending him stumbling sideways.

He caught himself against the metal barrier.

For a moment, everything seemed to stop.

The music continued. The crowd continued moving. James continued clapping.

But something inside Eric went suddenly still.

A strange pressure formed behind his eyes. His ears popped, and the music seemed to drop away, becoming distant and muffled. He gripped the barrier tighter, afraid he might faint.

“Okay,” he whispered. “What the hell?”

The metal beneath his hand felt unusually cold.

Then it began to rise.

Eric stared at it.

The barrier had not moved. He was still holding the same horizontal rail, but it was slowly sliding upward through his fingers. What had been level with his waist was now against his chest.

Eric released it and stepped backward.

The pavement shifted beneath him.

No, not shifted.

Expanded.

Every crack in the concrete widened. Tiny stones appeared between his shoes, growing from pebbles into jagged pieces of rock. Discarded glitter scattered across the pavement became bright, reflective discs.

Eric looked down at himself.

His body was shrinking.

“No.”

The word came out thin and distant.

His shirt and jeans were shrinking with him, remaining fitted against his body as everything else grew. The barrier climbed past his shoulders. The people around him stretched upward, their legs lengthening into towering columns that disappeared above him.

“Dad!”

James did not turn.

Eric was barely knee-high now.

Then ankle-high.

The crowd transformed around him. Shoes crashed against the pavement in every direction, each step landing with enough force to shake the ground. Sandals slapped against concrete. Heavy sneakers struck beside him and lifted again before he could process how close they had come.

Eric stumbled away from the barrier.

“Dad!”

His voice had become too small to travel farther than a few feet.

The transformation accelerated.

In seconds, Eric dropped beneath the height of the shoes surrounding him. The pavement rushed upward until every groove and piece of grit stood out in terrifying detail. A sneaker landed nearby, the rubber sole striking the ground with a deafening impact.

Eric threw himself aside.

The shoe lifted again without its owner ever knowing he had been there.

He rolled across the rough pavement and covered his head as more footsteps thundered around him. A bare heel came down several feet away, followed by the edge of a sandal scraping across the ground.

Eric forced himself back onto his feet.

He could no longer see the parade. He could no longer see the crowd as people. There were only legs, shoes and flashes of sunlight between moving bodies.

Then he saw a familiar pair of tan shorts above him.

Eric followed the legs downward.

Brown leather sandals.

His father.

James stood only a short distance away, still watching the parade. From Eric’s new perspective, he was enormous. His calves rose like columns above the crowd of shoes, and the crossbody bag hanging against his hip looked impossibly far away.

Relief rushed through Eric.

“Dad!”

He began running toward him.

James shifted his weight.

One of his sandals lifted from the pavement.

Eric stopped.

The underside passed overhead, briefly blocking out the sun before James placed his foot down again closer to the barrier.

The impact shook the pavement beneath Eric’s feet.

“Dad!” Eric screamed. “Dad, look down!”

James gave no sign that he had heard him. He kept watching the parade, clapping along with the music as the crowd cheered around him.

Eric waved both arms over his head, but he was already smaller than a loose piece of gravel. Even if his father happened to glance down, there was no reason he would recognize the tiny figure standing beside his sandal as his son.

Then Eric felt the pavement changing beneath him again.

The cracks widened. The grains of dirt around his shoes swelled larger. The edge of the sandal rose higher against the sky.

He was still shrinking.

“No. No, stop.”

His voice had become so faint that he could barely hear it over the pounding music.

Eric looked around desperately. Remaining on the pavement was not an option. Feet surrounded him on every side, landing and lifting without warning. Someone’s sneaker struck the ground nearby, sending a tremor through the concrete that nearly knocked him over.

He needed to get higher.

His eyes returned to his father’s sandal.

It was the closest thing he had to safety.

Bracing both hands against the thick rubber edge, Eric pulled himself upward. The rough material gave him plenty to grip, but the climb was steeper than it had first appeared. What had looked like a low sandal from the ground now towered above him like the side of a platform.

James shifted his weight.

The sandal tilted suddenly, throwing Eric against the rubber. He flattened himself against it as the entire structure lifted slightly from the pavement and came down again with a heavy slap.

“Dad, stop moving!”

James continued swaying with the music.

Eric dug his fingers into a groove in the rubber and climbed faster. Each movement of his father’s foot threatened to shake him loose, but he forced himself higher until he finally reached the leather footbed.

He dragged himself over the edge and collapsed onto the worn surface.

For half a second, he felt relieved.

Then he looked up.

His father’s toes filled the space ahead of him.

They rested against the sandal in a broad row, each one larger than Eric’s entire body. Skin creased and shifted as James flexed his foot along with the music. The smallest movements became enormous at Eric’s size. A toe lifted, curled slightly, then pressed back into the leather with enough force to make the footbed dip beneath him.

Eric stared.

He had climbed to higher ground, but he had placed himself directly beside the most dangerous part of it.

“Dad!” he shouted again. “Look! I’m down here!”

He ran toward the nearest toe and began pounding both fists against it.

“Dad, it’s me!”

The skin barely moved beneath his hands.

James flexed his toes.

Eric stumbled backward as the enormous digits shifted around him. One slid across the leather, scraping close enough that its shadow passed over his body before it settled again.

He hurried forward and struck the toe harder.

“Please look down!”

Nothing.

His father continued dancing, completely unaware that Eric was standing on the sandal beneath him.

Then the shrinking quickened again.

Eric watched in horror as the grooves of James’s skin deepened before his eyes. Fine hairs became thicker. Tiny flakes of dry skin grew around him like pale chips scattered across the leather.

His fists became too small to make even the slightest impact.

“No, no, no.”

He pressed both hands against the toe, but he could feel himself diminishing against it. His father’s skin seemed to spread outward beneath his palms as Eric became smaller and smaller.

Within seconds, the toe that had already towered over him became a massive wall of warm skin.

Eric stepped back, craning his neck to see the top of it.

“Dad!” he screamed with everything he had left.

James shifted his foot again.

The toes flexed.

Eric lost his balance and fell onto the leather as one of them moved toward him, filling his entire view.

He scrambled backward on his hands and knees.

James’s toe settled across the place where Eric had fallen. The leather compressed beneath its weight, and Eric disappeared into the crease between them.

Above, James continued cheering, unaware that his son had become too small to see.