By Srishti Roy
An old man stood on the edge of the abyss of Time, looking into the Sun. His frail hands trembled as they gripped a gold-tipped cane which held him steady. His face, a map of wrinkles and spots, glowed with the light of the star. His eyes seemed to sparkle with an inner light that intrigued me. I stood next to him, watching the sun’s descent.
“I made her, you know,” he whispered, sounding awed by his own voice, and his own creation. His voice felt like a forest; trembling like the trees blowing in the wind, and scratchy like the sound of animals moving through the thrushes, foraging for prey at night. “I cradled her in my arms, my only daughter. She was such a small child, so innocent. I did not think she would survive.”
The Sun, the epitome of strength in our world, was once a frail child. She, who spread her gold to the land, gifting all with her light, bold and beautiful, was once a tiny flame held in his arms. She, who ignited the last vestiges of autumnal beauty, who glowed as bright as the fire in the hearths of the Earth, who brought life to the land, was once brought to life by a father, just like us. The thought was both frightening and humbling. I asked him to continue.
“The world was a cruel and dark place, son. The world takes her for granted ; she is your hero. You depend upon her, and she is a dutiful daughter.”
But how did he create her, I asked. The Sun was our goddess, and to create a goddess one had to be a Titan. Was he an immortal?
The Father of the Sun laughed. “I am no God, nor any Titan. I am but a simple man, and through my anger and folly, I fashioned a ball of fire. I felt her heat, her warmth, and her joy. Happiness created from a wisp of fury. However, no daughter wants to know the reason to her birth, and thus I kept her original progenitor away from her. Fury, Anger and Sadness were stowed away, deep in the folds of my heart, for I could not bear to take away her innocence, her purity. I felt her warmth and joy overflow from her, enticing everyone she met, animate and inanimate. I heard the notes of laughter bubble out of her, spilling over everything, and the land she passed over smelt better, with little things sprouting under my feet as I ran with her, feeling her warmth in my heart. I knew her and she knew me ; we were one.”
The last part of his memory was uttered with melancholia, laced with sadness and nostalgia. It was said with the feeling of a man who knows his glory days are over. I turned to look at him ; he was still facing her, his face now aglow with her receding red rays.
“She was always fast ; I just never envisioned a day when she was faster than me, so fast that she raced past me, into a new world. She forgot all about me, her father who was still running after her. Sometimes I felt her behind me, but she would move on past me indifferently. She could not hear me shout after her to slow down, to turn around and at the very least acknowledge me, but she never heard my desperate pleas. I cried and ran behind her for centuries, but I never found her. A father, running after his daughter for hundreds of years, just waiting to be acknowledged. How cruel! To think of what I sacrificed for her are things only a father can do.”
I stood still in shock. Our goddess, the saviour of life, could not even recognize her own father? I looked at the dying embers of twilight, stretching across the sky. I felt a strange sense of shame and sadness coursing through me. Suddenly, the world was cloaked in black. It seemed that the Sun had left him again.
His face, with its deep lines of fatigue and old age, crinkled as he smiled. “But finally, I have found her. She is in front of me, waiting. She can see me, she feels me, and any moment she will call out to me.”
I turned. His face was still in the same position, looking at the same place where she was earlier. “She has gone, can’t you see?” I asked him, thinking he was delusional from his memories. He turned to me, his eyes queer and glassy, without focusing on me. He laughed ; it was a hollow, maniacal sound, as though he was a mad man. He furrowed his brow and smiled, his teeth a gruesome yellow. I looked into his eyes again, and found him staring away from me, his glassy eyes nodding in that direction as he talked to me. He did not look at me…he could not look at me.
I took a step back, horrified.
“Has she gone already? My son, what do you think I sacrificed by looking into her light?
By Srishti Roy
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