When The Sun Became A Purple Giant

There is an eclectic chalet by the intersection of Haverhill St. and Windsor Road. It’s windows, tinted with a vague aubergine glow, with a beauty severely depredated by cracks on the glass. There are bright yellow curtains just inside the window, pulled to the sides, secured by thick white ropes with cream-colored tassels. This is how it is today. This is how it was yesterday. And this, is how it was fifty years ago. Unmoved, un-touched.

If you dare to go close enough, and peer in through the window, you will see a porcelain bowl, with a small handle on the side. It sits on the sil, besides ancient binding- a book, with crimson pages, and faded text. If you look really hard, you can discern small characters and shapes. Text, that to you, would be severely arcane.

No one has ever opened that door. There’s an unfamiliar stench reeking from the corners, its aroma filling the yard, attacking anyone who dares approach. Of course, there have been attempts to pass through with the sensors covered, and some have made it to the door. But by the door sits a ferocious beast. With wide eyes, enormous claws, and painted graying whiskers. When approached, the creature was known to make a peculiar hissing sound. It was shrill, prolonged, and flaunted an intention to maim. Only one individual has seen this creature and returned to tell the tale. And how frightening the tale is, of the vile creature at the door.

Rumor has it that this creature never moves. It just sits at the door with a long cane, ready to pounce.

Nothing else on the street displays the color or radiance of the aged chalet. All other abodes sport a metallic shade of grey or gold. Some older ones have reddening crevices. It happened because of something called moisture, the wiser ones said. Moisture, the greatest enemy the world has ever known. You were told by your elders that you must stay far from moisture at all costs. And you did not need to be told twice, you saw for yourself when Ari burst into flames. You saw for yourself as all left the room and allowed Ari to go down in those flames.

Feelings. Did you feel anything? You do not know. Ari was your sole companion. Yes, there was something that felt missing. Like a wire had come loose, in your heart. But what difference would it make to feel. The world had to go on, and so did you.

Ari lived right next to you on Haverhill St. Your shining silver capsule, now, standing beside flames. You stand there alone. Alone. The word reverberates within you. The feeling of loneliness is not programmed into your conscience. You have known and you have lost, but you have never felt this before- an eerie emptiness, a thirst for companionship, a desire to share the experience of being alive. Or feeling alive, rather.

As you walk past where Ari would live, you feel a quiver. You slump into the past as you trudge on, recollecting your memories. Before they fade away, you think to yourself. With that you travel back to the beginning of everything. The cataclysm that struck your home ages ago. How much time had it been? You do not know. Back home you would look at the positions of the three heavenly orbs in the sky. The first orb was once a star, much like the star they used to have on earth. You had seen it on dilapidated structures ‘s u n’. You wonder how you’d pronounce that word and try saying it back to yourself. The humans had pictures of this sun. They drew a circle with zigzags around it. You saw it etched into rocks and wonder if it was this very sun that caused their demise. It looked different now than it did in their pictures. It wore the aubergine glow from the chalet and consumed the entire horizon. It seemed like a beast ready to consume the entirety of the barren cracked ground that it sat on.

You were told that there used to be water there, on the barren land, and small creatures that would wade through it. A trove of moisture, devastating for your kind. But a thousand years ago, all that moisture had been pulled from the land and consumed by the air, forming a dense blanket. Some of your elders had tried to land here then, eager to search for a new home for your own kind. They burned away as soon as they neared.

Soon, through intense engineering and heavy testing gear and suits were made to allow your kind to pass through this barrier and descend on the dry and arid earth, and you all left your home for this strange land. This land, with one enormous star, and another orb- written out to be the ‘m-o-o-n.’

As you continue your path, you glance at the crumbling chalet. Maybe this was made by the humans, you think to yourself. Large abodes, so many could live together. Your kind struggled with understanding that. You all existed for yourself. Your purpose- to exist, to survive, to not perish. And although you regarded yourselves as a more advanced life form, you cannot help but wonder if your tradition of isolation was the most optimum way to be, in your own way, alive.

The chalet stands on barren ground, and just for a moment, you are drawn to it. You stand by the window and peer in. The book catches your eye. Empty, barren, just like the land below. You look up at the wall and see an image, peeling off the wall. You see what seems to be a dried outline of four beings. Four beings, assuming one head for each. Or maybe two, two headed beings- if that outline was even a head. And yet, you feel a yearning to have your outline drawn, with another, to have it plastered in your capsule, and to experience a vague fondness as you look towards it. Your mind flashes back to Ari, and you shiver in shock. Emotions that you have never felt before are creeping into your thoughts, out of your control. This never happened to your kind. You know. You have never felt it before. Yet, you do feel it at this very moment. You stay still experiencing all of it. You pause and for a moment, yearn to feel moisture and burn into flames. This onset of emotions is more than you can manage.

Creak!

Your thoughts are interrupted by a shrill sound. You notice a break in the glow, and your emotions grow stronger. Through your rear vision, you witness a figure gesture to you. The figure is intriguing. It is a frail figure, barely upright. With four limbs, two at the top and two below. The figure has all four sprawled on the floor supporting an elongated, wrinkled, and cracked body. You take it all in. One head, you note to yourself. You watch as it beckons you towards it. You cover your sensors to block out the stench and walk through the chalet yard.

“This used to be beautiful, you know?”

The creature mutters. You stare blankly, unable to comprehend the sounds being produced. It is trying to say something to you, something in a language beyond your comprehension. Yet, you detect a form of sincerity in the voice, and you try. It is gesturing to the barren ground, and then leads you to a door. You notice its claws, as it opens the door and leads you into a hallway. You notice the wide eyes, and the painted whiskers as you feel a little sinch on yourself. You feel a sense of anxiousness- and make your way to the door intending to leave but find yourself trapped inside. The creature comes to you with an image, and you take a long glance.

It is an image of the chalet; you recognize it instantly. The perfectly finished windows sport a reddish tint. There is a picturesque tuft of green where the barren land would be, adorned by colorful blobs, of different shapes and sizes. Initially, you are repulsed by the bright colors, yet you feel a certain delight on witnessing them. You look at the creature with curiosity, and a thought rushes to you- Is this a human?

The human shows you a small corner of the chalet, where a singular vibrant blob stands on a wanting tuft of green. “Flower,” the human says. The voice rings clear in your head. The flower stands in the corner, staring back at you, almost as if it too was alive. The human looks back at the picture and shows you a faint smile, and as he does, you too, feel content, fulfilled. Once again, you are overcome with foreign emotions, but this time, you gratefully accept it. The picture is sitting in front of you, seeming completely fictional. Maybe this is how the humans saw the earth. Behind the flowers, you see a bright yellow orb midway its journey across the sky. It is a lot smaller than the purple monster that provides light now. The curiosity within you lifts your finger as you point to the orb. The man smiles once again, “sun”, he says.

Sun

That is not how you had imagined it sounding, at all. It was a name so simple for such a magnificent structure. The sun. Your kind would never witness this sun, but how fortunate were you to have seen this sun, in its humble form.

Everything in the chalet looked different. You wondered why. Colors seemed vibrant. The air seemed heavier.

“It used to be beautiful here,” the human begins to say. You do not understand, yet you patiently listen, enthralled by your position. “We had oceans, and rives, and trees, and flowers. We were not alone, there were so many others.”

His torso expands and contracts heavily, as if he is taking the air around him in. “We loved not only our kind, but also others, other kinds.”

The tingling on your body suddenly becomes more intense. You do not understand why.

“Then the sun grew,” as he said this, his hands expanded, and you imagined the humble sun’s expansion into the purple monster. “And all the water, gone.” He paused and did the chest thing again. You wonder what that was, and whether all humans did it. “And the life, gone…”

A droplet rolled down his eye. “I sealed this,” he said, earnestly, “I kept as much as I could in. But what was it worth, I am the only one.”

You study the droplet intently, and suddenly, you realize where you are. The tingling returns. Moisture. Humans needed moisture, but your kind could not survive in its presence.

For a brief moment, everything made sense. Your existence here on this Earth, in that moment, held meaning.

And just as fast as the emotions crawled through your body the tingling you felt burst into a flame. The human stared blankly at you, with dry, empty eyes. You raise your hand and point to it. “Bob,” he says. That is not what you imagined the word human to be pronounced as, you think.

The flames have engulfed you almost wholly by this time. You take a look at the little flower, standing in the corner.

One last thing. You raise your hand once again and point to yourself. Bob smiles, “Alien,” he says.

Alien, that is not such a bad name.