Can't Escape the Sun

A Story by Miss J

The sun is chasing me today, and I can't seem to get away from it. Forgot my umbrella, left it in back at home, no shade in sight, and I can't go back in there. Well, I don't want to. I suppose there is a difference. I did my time for today, pretending to kowtow to the ignorant masses for barely a pittance in return. Oh! Thank goodness for sunglasses, and thank goodness I didn't forget them today. Beautiful, big, black sunglasses.

When the sun is as unyieldingly bright--they say if you look directly at it, you go blind, but you don't, I know--round and hanging so heavy in a cloudless sky, as it is today, I feel as though I'm trapped. You can't escape the sun, you know. Sure, you can go indoors, go find some shade, as I've said, but it's still there, waiting for you to come back out. You have to eventually. Out of all of my already overworked senses, that of sight has always been the most powerful. Even faint sunlight peeking out from behind a veil of clouds is enough to make me reach for the sunglasses, so today's assault is visually scalding.

Sometimes I wish I could crawl right into the earth, so cool and dark, and just sleep for all eternity, with no one or nothing able to bother me ever again. I'll bet it feels like the womb down there. I miss that. I was late in coming out of it by at least two weeks. Was supposed to be born on New Year's Eve, but I was just so comfortable in utero, so safe and secure, that I stalled my birth for as long as I could. My mother labored to push me out for two days, until they finally had to force me out of her. I like to think that I must have known I wouldn't like it out here, and that is why I had such a traumatic birth. I imagine that I was clinging to my mother's ribs to stay inside while the doctors were trying to pull my feet out. Rather gruesome image, I know, but I can't help conjuring it up.

I believe that the terrible brightness of the hospital lights, after having been used to living in such a dark place, was a very bad first impression of this world for me. I was a miserable baby, who grew into a miserable toddler, who became a miserable child, etc. and so on. And here I am, a merely discontented adult. At least now I am able to make light of the complete discomfiture I experience in this ill-fitting skin. I have grudgingly come to terms with the fact that I am unable to escape from this too tangible world and all within it that is too bright, too loud, too hard, and too painful. To be fair, there have been instances of bliss in my life, and not completely few and far between, at that. I've known peace in times of quiet and solitude; during long walks in the forest; as I read a good book in my bedroom with only the cats to keep me company. My life is not all shock and discord; it is not all bad.

It's rather like this blasted sunshine. For twelve hours of the day, I can bask in the relief of the dark and cool night, but during the other half... For the life of me, I can't escape the sun.