Sun and Shadow

The pilgrims had been travelling for many days, and at last were beneath the crumbling terrace, its steps worn smooth with the feet of thousands who had travelled before them. Reverently, they presented their gifts, kneeling humbly before the silver form outlined in the light of the morning sun. They began their chant. Serida. Consort of the Sun, we pray you always return with the light.

Five hundred years earlier, the morning pressed hotly against the earth. Serida, clothed in an ethylene glycol silver suit, sat upon the stone terrace overlooking a world baked to ash. A weak wind stirred the air and with it came the tang of ozone and the scent of burnt sap. Above her, the whiteness of the sky was blinding. Serida peeled off her silver gloves. Beneath, her hands were a bright crimson, but they did not tremble. She kept her eyes fixed on the horizon.

Her mind drifted back seventy years, back to the golden afternoons of the 209-year nychthemera. The sky then had been sapphire. She thought of the cold mountain streams, the scented pollen of the orchards, and the velvet twilights. She remembered swimming in mountain lakes, and wandering through lush forests that crowded the hillsides. Now, those same lakes were dry and cracked with salt, the trees now grey and the orchards brittle twigs, occasionally bursting into flame under the solar rays. Serida’s eyes stung, but she refused to look away.

She thought of the elders—the "Century-Born." They were men and women made of winter, who had survived the long, 100-year night of the Vaults. Then, even when the world outside had bloomed again, they remained entombed in their created night. They pulled their curtains shut, terrified of the light. They spoke in hushed whispers of the True Cold, of the frost that nibbled fingers down to the bone. They talked of the hypnotic beat of the underground air-scrubbers. To them, the sun was not a giver of life; it was Mushussu, the great dragon of the heavens —a beast that had spent a century trying to swallow them whole.

In that suffocating stretch before the great migration, Serida had stood at the edge of the bunker, looking into an endless, gray-steel labyrinth of corridors. She could hear the hum of generators and could see hundreds of ashen faces illuminated only by the glow of computer terminals. They were going down there to live like the Ekimmu—the restless, invisible ghosts of the unburied dead, forced to wander the dark places of the world in search of a rest they would never find. Serida knew if she stepped past that iron door, she would become a wraith herself, her spirit starved of light. She would spend what remained of her life dreaming of a sky she would be too old to ever see again.

​Below the terrace, the colourless city was empty. The heavy gates of the Vaults had dropped shut three hours ago, sealing the world away with a deep thud—a sound that had vibrated up through the stone, through her boots, and straight into her soul. The people had stood at the threshold, their hands reaching out, begging her to go down into the safety of the dark. Mad, they had whispered through the vault grilles. Crazy Serida, they called her as the doors slid shut. Crazy, crazy Serida.

She reached up with both hands. Her fingers found the seals of her heavy silver helmet. With a sharp twist, she unclipped it and let it drop. It hit the stone ground. The loud, ringing clang echoed around the empty villas. She heard the hiss of the coolant escaping. The unfiltered universe shocked her. It was not just the blazing clarity; she felt exactly as if she were standing before the open door of a vast kiln. But it was magnificent. It was real.

The sun climbed to its zenith. The light became so fierce that even the shadows seemed to melt.

Serida’s breath came in quick, short gasps, a shallow fluttering in her chest. Her vision blurred into a swirl of gold and white. She could feel the agony of the burns piercing her suit. And then, mercifully, an overwhelming warmth spread through her. She closed her eyes. But the sun was too vast to be stopped by eyelids; it burned right through them, turning the interior of her mind into a brilliant, pulsing crimson. She took one last, deep breath of the burning air, filling her lungs with fire before the sky consumed her.

***********************************************

A century drifted by in the forced darkness.

One hundred years of artificial wind and steel-walled rooms passed before the surface finally began to cool. Slowly, the planet swung back toward a safe and gentle sun. And, on one radiant morning, the massive Vault doors hissed open. A new generation of children—pale as cave fish -stepped out beneath the high terrace to greet the dawn of the new 209-year day.

They shielded their eyes, gasping at the impossible vastness of the blue and at a horizon they had never known could exist.

"Look," one boy whispered, his voice trembling as he pointed a pale finger toward the stone veranda. "Look there. On the rock."

The children climbed up, their feet silent on the stone. They stopped, and became quiet as they found the curious relic.

"Is it a drawing?" a young girl asked, reaching out a hesitant hand. "A painting from the old days?"

"No," an older child said softly, squinting into the fierce, rising gold of the sky. "It’s that story they told us. Someone stayed behind. The one who loved the sun too much to ever hide from it .”

On the stone where Serida had sat, an outline of silver in the weathered form of a body had melted into the rock, its face turned forever upward toward the sun.

Serida, Ancient One,

Who stood when the world was fire,

Hold back the palm of your Consort.

Shield us from the zenith,

Grant us the mercy of the gentle sky.