We used to work in a mine. A coal mine, I think it was. We worked all day, all night. We didn’t have any specific duty hours nor we got paid in cash like other general workers. We used to work tirelessly everyday and every night. We didn’t have any Sundays. All we knew of this world was the deep, dark and full of coal mine and one house made of wood, which we had learnt to call home. It only had one room, with no bed. We used to sleep on the floor. That didn’t bother us. We just had a long table, we used to sit around it when we had to eat.
I know not where we came from. We didn’t even know who we are. We had no names, no identities nor any families. We didn’t have a father, or mother, or brother, or a sister. We only knew one person on this entire earth: That was Mistress Sun. Mistress Sun wasn’t like us; we had strong arms with which we used to break the stones and pull the cargo trolley in the mine. We had very short hair. Mistress Sun didn’t have a rough skin like we had, nor she was covered in black soot most of the time like us. She had an extremely fair skin; a glow emitted from her face all the time. She had lips that were red as the blood that flows inside every human. She didn’t have the same size of chest as we did. She had a large chest compared to us all. She had explained this to us that she was a woman and we were men. She told us that the men must abide by the laws of the woman. So we did. We worked all day and all night in the mine. Mistress Sun gave us food to eat. She said that food gives the body energy to work harder. Sometimes Mistress Sun would drop in to eat with us. When she came in, we all stood up and offered our morsel of food. She used to take it, eat it and hit any of us who had come forward with the piece of bread and offered it to her. We particularly loved when Mistress Sun was around us. We didn’t have to work in the mine when she was with us. After she ate, we used to eat and she used to watch. She didn’t dress like we did; we used to wear the same black colored sleeveless vest and a roughed up brown pair of trousers. I didn’t remember whether the vest was black from the beginning or it simply turned black as we used to work in the mine all the time. Mistress Sun used to wear a Deep sky blue flowing top kind of thing and a bright yellow long skirt that covered her ankles. She used to wear a bow on her head that was as red as her lips.
As we ate, Mistress Sun used to tell us about the world. She told us what were days and nights, she told us what was earth and what were planets. She told us that all the planets in the solar system rotates around one star: The Sun. She used to tell us that she was our Sun and we must stay with her, taking care of her and obeying her every order. And so we did.
She told us about angels, those who guide and protect men from harm. We believed that she was our angel, though we didn’t tell Mistress as we were scared if Mistress be angry. In fact, we never spoke when Mistress Sun was there with us. In fact, I don’t remember if ever we used to speak at all.
After we finished eating, Mistress Sun used to have us all lined up and asked us to lower our trousers. She then ordered us to bend over her knee, one by one. She used to hit us on our bottom side with her hand very forcefully. She used to do that very often, we thought that she liked hitting us on our back side. We liked it too perhaps, but we didn’t tell that to the Mistress. After she had finshed hitting all of us and we all had red marks on our back side after she had done with; we used to work for Mistress Sun. We used to rub some kind of liquid all over Mistress Sun’s legs and arms. Mistress Sun told us that was oil that was only for the woman to apply on her body. One of us used to groom Mistress Sun’s long hair that came upto her waist. She used to give a tool for her hair that had a handle and a lot of teeth on the face. Mistress told us that was a comb that is used for a woman’s hair only. And so we did. The others used to hold a silvery white thing just opposite of where Mistress Sun was sitting so that it reflected Mistress Sun’s Elegant beauty. We also used to wash Mistress Sun’s feet after she had been oiled.
One day, while working in the mine, I found a shiny little thing. It was yellow, just like Mistress Sun’s frock. It was shining. I showed it to the others and we thought to show it to our Mistress Sun. We knelt on the ground as she approached us. I gave her the shiny thing that I had found in the mine. She took a look at it and then smiled at us. We smiled too. Then Mistress Sun told us to sit down for food. So we did.
“I am dying.” Mistress Sun told us. She had told us about life and death, and so we were scared. We looked scared, anyway. She sat back and spread her legs apart so we could see her immensly white legs. Mistress Sun smiled at us and told us about a thing called poison that hurries death to a person whoever wants death. She then said, “you have been good to me. I want you to keep my body after I die in a glass case up at the hill outside your home under a tree that has no leaves and bears no fruit." We knew all about trees and fruits, as Mistress Sun had taught us all about them. We were proud of Mistress Sun, we were happy to have her with us, guiding us, like an angel. Finally, I managed to stutter out the words, “What will we do without our Mistress Sun?”
Mistress Sun looked at me long and hard. I felt strange. I felt that there was something stuck in my throat that was very uncomfortable. We had been through pain; we worked in a mine, remember? But this was something different. Something that we were not used to. But I didn’t dare to say anything more. But Mistress Sun smiled. She then showed us something that looked a lot like the drilling machine I used to work on in the mine, only it was a lot smaller. It was very light too; as Mistress Sun was holding it on her palm. It had a very sharp point. Mistress Sun said that it was a syringe, which had the poison in it and it is used to move it from the syringe to a body. Mistress Sun told us that she did that a short while ago. We moved towards her, rubbing her feet, holding her body as she stood. And slowly, she began to frail. Her grip on my head grew slack and numb. She started to collapse. But we didn’t let her fall down. We lied her down on the floor.
Mistress Sun was dead. But we did as she had told us to. We put her body in the glass case and carried on our shoulders. We opened the door. I felt something on my face. It felt cold. I thought it must be the wind that Mistress Sun had told us about. The whole floor wasn’t black like the mine, instead, it was white and cold. Soft white things were also falling from the sky. That must be snow, as Mistress Sun had told us about. What would we do without Mistress Sun now? We thought as we carried her still beautiful body up at the mountain top and placed her under the tree that had no leaves nor bore any fruit as she had told us. Then we gathered around and looked up to the sky. I felt as if my throat would burst from whatever was stuck in there. But my eyes felt wet. Slowly, I felt something tingling my cheeks, falling down. I touched it and it was water. I looked up at the others and I found that every one had water flowing down their eyes. No one knew why water flowed out of our eyes.
We still don’t know a lot of things. But we still work at the mine. Without Mistress Sun now joining us when we ate. But we still ate bread. We went to the place where we laid Mistress Sun. She looked the same, with her eyes closed, as if sleeping. Nothing changed. Just the tree overhead bore a fruit. A big red apple. An apple as red as Mistress Sun’s lips. We stood there daily a lot and all of us have water flowing down our eyes. We came to know that the water from the eyes were called tears.
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