Angry Sun

The boy had wandered too far from the village. He knew his mother would start to worry soon, if she had not already, but he was curious about the strange figure he could just barely see. It was far out, in the distance, solitary, alone like a dark piece of driftwood, afloat on a sandy, golden ocean.

It had not started getting dark yet, but it would soon, so the boy decided to hurry. Wading across wave after wave on a sea of saffron sand, through the heat of an angry sun.

He wished he had some water. That’s what they told little children in the desert - always keep enough water in you, or you’d be light enough for that angry old sun to carry you away forever. The boy really didn’t know where the sun might take him, but he didn’t want to find out. If it was as hot as it was up in the sky, miles away the boy reckoned, he could only imagine and wince at the thought of the burning he might get up close.

He had walked far enough that his village was almost completely invisible, barely perceptible. Not only was it a tiny blotch on the horizon; the sandstone buildings faded in and out of the sand, confusing the boy until he gave up trying to find his village, and kept walking on. On the other hand, the object he was approaching was the color of charcoal on the bottom half, and black smoke poured forth from a long arm on what the boy decided must be the front end. Unless it was a very stiff tail…Anyway, it was quite hard to miss.

The boy had no idea what to make of it. When he finally got close enough to touch the thing, he found it was hard like stone, and it was mildly hot on the boy’s hand. The boy looked at the arm - or tail. For the most part, it was colored like the desert, like the top half of the object. However, it became increasingly black towards the end, which blossomed in several different directions like flowers on cacti. The smoke billowed out of a hole in the blossom and upward towards the sun, which was still stalking the boy, waiting to take him away.

The boy stayed near the thing for some time (Could he call it a creature? Had it once been alive?), and he stared at it, without really looking at it. Despite the excitement of his new discovery, the boy’s mind wandered back to the day before. He had done something bad - he couldn’t really remember what - and his mother was hitting him, beating him, striking him. She was insane with anger, and her face was livid, heating up like the sun. He wished he could remember what it was he’d done, he’d make a point never to do it again.

She had told him he’d been bad. She had told him what he’d done was awful. Worst of all, she had told him she was ashamed of him. He didn’t know what “ashamed” meant, but from the way she acted, he could guess it meant that she didn’t love him anymore. He had been so horrible a child that even his own mother didn’t love him anymore. That’s all he wanted. Love. Mommy’s love. How horrible to be denied the one thing you want more than anything else on this wretched earth. How horrible to be denied the love of a mother.

His mind came back to focus on the creature (he had decided to assume it to be, or to have once been, alive; better to err on the side of caution). He called out to it. He asked it what it was. No answer. He repeated his question with excessive volume. Still no answer. He kicked it a few times, hurting his toes, then yelling at it all the harder. After several minutes of silence following this, he determined that if it ever was alive, it surely wasn’t anymore. That or it was a very heavy sleeper.

He decided to climb atop the weird thing. It seemed easy enough, and the boy liked easy. It didn’t move at all under his weight, not that he had expected himself to make an impression on such an enormous…thing. On top of what he decided to call the “head” (the bulbous piece from which the “arm” protruded), he found a small handle. He gave it a light tug, and as he did, he realized that it was attached to a circular hatch. Certainly not an animal, for what animal had such convenient access to its innards?

It took several minutes, all his strength, and the withdrawal of the word “convenient” from his previous thought to lift the hatch and reveal a small opening. If it was a creature, something was definitely wrong with it. Either way, bravery took hold of him, as it so often does among young fatherless boys, and he decided to climb down into the hole by way of a descending ladder, partially out of curiosity, and partially out of disdain for that angry old sun, who had been watching him the whole time, and had seemed to get closer every minute.

He was greeted with a stuffy heat and a thick, weighty darkness. He waited an extensive length of time under the opening to give his eyes time to adjust to the change of lighting.

He focused on a dark mass in front of him. At first, it was nothing more than an ambiguous shape, vaguely outlined in the darkness. But as his eyes became more and more accustomed to the blackness, the shape began to take form. He stepped towards it and gave it a light shove, causing it to fall on the ground, whereupon he leapt backwards in surprise.

Once again standing under the light, the boy glanced down at the hand that at touched the figure, now covered in a crimson fluid. He looked down at the mass, which had taken a form much like his own, and he saw two blue eyes staring up at him. Two cold eyes; two sightless eyes.

With a piercing, hair-curling scream, he scrambled back up the ladder and out into the burning sun, which was now a brilliant orange color. He fell over sideways, suddenly very dizzy. He rolled over the edge of the rock-solid death trap, and lost his stomach into the sand, changing it into a color he didn’t know existed. He decided it was time to go home, everyone would surely be missing him by now.

Or would they? After all, his mother didn’t love him anymore; who else would? In fact, the more he listened, the more he knew he heard high-pitched squeals, wails, screeches. Were they celebratory? He also heard popping noises, explosions like the fireworks that the American merchants sometimes brought to town. Americans. They had blue eyes…Don’t think about that! He almost lost it again.

He turned and peered off into the distance. He brought his arms to shield himself from the steadily dropping temperature as much to comfort himself, for it seemed no one else ever would. He saw the explosions he was hearing in the sky and all round his village. Massive, dark colored birds flying around each other, weaving in and out of the luminous explosions. They must be throwing a mammoth celebration. The people of his village had only just now noticed he was missing, and in their happiness, they must have been having a festival.

He knew that this very thought should be depressing him. He knew he should feel betrayed, denied, and several other emotions he didn’t even know words for. It should sadden him that his people didn’t want him. He might have been dead, or gone forever, and they were having a party.

But he wasn’t sad. He didn’t feel betrayed. In a way, he was…glad. All his life, he had been a burden, a disappointment. Now that he was gone, they were jumping for joy. After all the times he’d tried, he had only just now succeeded in pleasing them, and it made him smile to be so helpful.

He wasn’t going back. After all, he’d finally made them happy, it would be a shame to spoil their fun by showing up at his own funeral. Then he realized there was only one place left where he was still welcome. There was only one person that still wanted him, might even take good care of him. He decided to sleep on the soft, warm sand. He hadn’t had any water all day. By morning, he would be light enough for that angry old sun to carry him away.