A Victim of the Sun

Jake folded his arms across his chest as he stared out the window. It was the middle of May in Seattle, Washington, and for yet another day, the sun was out. It was a balmy seventy-five degrees outside, and the birds were singing, the bees were buzzing, and the neighborhood kids were laughing as they played outside.

Jake frowned as he glared out the window. He hated days like these.

Jake never went outside on hot, sunny days. It was part of the reason he had moved to Seattle a year ago, because he had heard people complain that it always rained in Washington, and they never had sunny days. This greatly appealed to him, and when his boss offered him the opportunity to transfer to the company’s Seattle location, he jumped at the chance.

But here he was, for the third day in a row, standing at his window, once again glaring at the sunlit yard.

He hated the sun more than anything. It prevented him from doing all of the things his friends did, and he never received the joy that others seemed to get from being in the sun; all he ever received from the sun was pain.

He closed his eyes and turned his back towards the window. He hated these sunny days. He always had since he was a little boy.

His friends had always made fun of him, and laughed at him when he refused to come outside on the most beautiful days. They would jeer at him, “Why aren’t you coming outside? Are you a vampire or something, scared of the sunlight?” Because of his lack of exposure to sunlight, his skin was extremely pale. His dark hair and dark eyes accentuated this fact, and made him look all the more vampirish. Even to this day, Jake was known by his friends as “the Vampire.” Jake always despised them for saying things like that, but they could never have known how close to the truth they were with their snide remarks.

Jake grimaced as the muffled, delighted screams of the children outside bombarded his ears, and brought back painful memories of his own childhood.

Jake couldn’t help but remember the one time as a young child when he stubbornly decided he was going to go outside and play with his friends, against his mother’s stern and concerned instructions. He wanted to play soccer with them, and he decided they would not make fun of him anymore for staying inside all the time.

Jake hadn’t been outside for longer than ten minutes before his small body was covered with painful rashes and hives. The physical pain, however, was nothing compared to the emotional turmoil his friends laid upon him after that incident. Now they really thought he was a vampire. They figured, why else would he have had such a reaction to the sunlight?

Not a vampire, Jake thought miserably, but the closest thing there is to it: being allergic to the sun.

Jake shook his head as he brought himself back to the present. He sighed as he once again turned to look out the window. For now, he was trapped. All he could do now was hope and pray for the rain to set him free from this murderous sunlight.

Word Count: 550