The sun came up this morning. It shone in through the bedroom window in sheaths of golden light, highlighting everything as a halo graces an angel's fair head. The birds awoke and sang anew the song of a new day, and a butterfly alighted from her cocoon to nest in the petals of a flower that had bloomed in the night. I suppose, had I been awake, I could have told you it was warm, and that the warmth made me happy. That's how a lot of stories begin, right?

But this isn't a beginning, nor is it a story. And I wasn't awake to feel the sun. I used my imagination to tell you of the sun. It was good, right?

It was a lie.

I was asleep, wrapped up in my covers, holding on to them for dear life. My dreams troubled me. Not because they were nightmares. There was nothing unrealistic about the dream. It just scared me that such a thing could happen. Even now, I cannot recall the dream, but the sense of dread follows me. It makes me cold. So I was cocooned in the blankets to escape that cold. And I never felt the warmth of the sun.


The sun was shining this afternoon. Full, bright, yellow and gold, making everything seem like a wonderland of beauty and happiness. The cool wind moved the grasses and the leaves of the trees bounced and danced at the wind's call as they glittered in the sunlight. Birds called to each other in the joy of the afternoon, and my little sisters were picking berries from the mulberry tree in the backyard.

I wish I could say I saw it. Had you fooled, didn't I? No, I was too angry to look outside and see the sun. Thoughts of malice and anger and the freezing grip of rage had a hold on me this afternoon. The world was red and black, and demons peeked from behind the freezer and from under the wooden floor as I swept and cleaned madly, spewing thoughts from my head in words no good person should say. The afternoon outside was lost to me. And I will never get it back.

The little girls came inside and skittered away from my glare. I enjoyed the feeling of enriching fear in the hearts of the little ones, forgetting for a moment that I loved them. For a moment, I was a monster, and I liked it. And then I fell back into the dark squalor of despair and sadness that always claims me after such an event.

And the sun had gone behind the clouds, the afternoon had vanished. I had lost it, and I would never see it again.


The sun went down tonight, hiding its golden light from the eyes of sleepy children. In the last few restraints of the sunset, the sky was ablaze with color and light, sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow. The clouds reflected in the neighbor's lake, two wonders to behold in the dying light. The first stars peeked from the night sky like the eyes of shy fairies coming out to play, safe away from the prying eyes of the unbelieving. And the wind, which had been at first cool and refreshing from the onslaught of the afternoon, is now sharp and hard, and drives the grasses like the whips of slave drivers on the backs of bound children. It was beautiful, frightening, and dark.

This would be where the story ends, right? The sun is setting, and everything is at peace.

But like I said before, this is not a story, and as of yet, there is no end. And also like before, I never saw it. I was sleeping already, though I had gotten up late this morning. When I got up once more, the sky was dark. The light was gone. I had missed it. Again.

But you believed me, right? I could have been there, for all the pretty words I used to describe the night, and the sun. They are a lie, like the mask an ugly lady puts on to charm her master. I used my imagination. My unique, beautiful, personal imagination.

I never saw the sun. I was too wrapped up in my life to watch it, to feel it, to enjoy it. And now I may never feel it again. I don't know. Just another day I took advantage of it. I used something that doesn't exist to replace it, make it more beautiful than I could know it was or was not. I wonder...will there be imagination in the place where I will go if I never see the sun again? Would it be such a bad thing?

The sun rose this morning. But I don't know if it's going to rise tomorrow. And if it does, I probably won't feel it. I'll be wrapped up in a dream that I won't remember by the time I wake up. And when I lay in my bed, staring at the yellow beams of the morning light, whose entrance I missed, I will wonder if that is what my life will be: a forgotten dream in the shadow of the passing sun.