Sunlight's Goodness

Ever since I was a young lad, I've been warned not to go outside without proper precautions. A hat, coat and glasses – and an umbrella – were a must, alongside my imported sunscreen.

Despite that, the lightest kiss of sun on my skin would bring along a red tingling that only grew as the years passed. It brought great concern and distress to my parents by the time I was nine, and when a trip to the doctor proved futile, I began indulging in thicker layers, more sunscreen, and, of course, I avoided the sun at all costs.

It was clear to my family what my problem was, though every doctor in the village said otherwise. We tried countless cures and treatment, but alas, my allergy remained. I'd be plastered in blisters and burns the moment I set foot out the door, despite any manner of shade or coverage.

Some days, I pondered the use of sunscreen. Was the purpose not to shield me from the sun, as the name implied? No, I knew entirely abandoning it would only be more detrimental to my health. To ease my parents' worries, I persisted. It was the only thing keeping me from the grave's door.

A month passed. Then two. Then a year. By the time I realised, I was already a twenty-four year old gentleman who had never the luxury of play in the outdoors, who had skipped the outer graduation and struggled to locate a nightly shift that could sustain my rather dreary lifestyle. I lived in my dark-screened office, free from terror, but it wasn't enough. Dates were left unsettled, friendships plummeted before they could start, and even the relationship with my own parents began to strain as they got old and could not fend off the shame.

“You can't be allergic to the sun!” said everyone we told. “Sunlight is full of goodness – perhaps you should go out more.”

Grinding my teeth to halt a snappy reply, I slapped aside the yellow papers and barely missed the telephone's cradle when one such comment arose from the interviewer. Their doubt had long stopped paining me. Now I only loathed it. Did I deserve this treatment, after suffering twenty-four long years of misery? Nay! Humans had a habit of disregarding the unexplainable, and if there was no other choice, I would show them the first-hand consequences of their ignorance.

My hand hovered over the hat and cloak that lay waiting on the hookstand. I pulled back, past the umbrella, past the sunglasses, but could not resist lathering on my trusty sunscreen. It wasn't my intent to lay down my life, after all. If I could be revived by the end of it, with a point well proven and my voice heard, all the better.

Tucking the bottle in my pocket – for safety measures – I sprang out into the world, more bare than ever I could recall. The searing beams were quick to latch upon me, but did I cower and turn tail? I marched my way into the bustling streets, pushing up my nose to the gasps and stares and, when I found the perfect stage lit by unclouded sun, my hands rose to the Heavens and I cried out, through the depths of my lungs, in despair I cried as my flesh crumbled flakes of red, as I shed like an old snake awaiting the hands of Death.

“Take me!” I cried through the shrieks of maidens, men and children alike. “O' doubtful ones, see and take me in this sinful light, for not a single being here has shown an ounce of belief – and see! See how the sunlight's goodness rends this wretched body in chunks that shiver to black! If this cannot be an allergy, then take it as blessing, the demise of he you scorned!”

The final words left my mouth a second's split before I collapsed, and the bright and dark alike took me over, and what was my body succumbed to the itching, the burn, the eternal gushing and pounding and flares.

If light was the goodness of worlds, of Heaven and life and all that was holy, I would accept the dark, for only it had been the one to believe and shelter this helpless soul for those twenty-four years. In snatches between dreams, I wept, for never again would I see the home with layered curtains and tinted screens, the office fortified under dark cloth. My grave would be the street lit with pain and disbelievers who mocked my very existence.

A light I dreaded came to me, forcing my eyes to part and see a room familiar and not, for I had wilted a good deal of time in the hard-cushioned beds with workers and walls mirrored in white, yet never had I seen this particular world. My hand shot to my heart that screamed for the dark's return, its sanctuary from the rashes that bubbled over bare skin.

“We ran some tests on you, lad,” said one old worker with a hunch that poured his beard to his lap – although, I was close to convinced the white of his coat was the one to rise and suck in his warted face. In his seafarer-stretched voice, he said, “Your skin showed signs of poisoning, and for some days we were at a loss until we came across this bottle.”

His hand flapped to the sunscreen in a rather dismissive manner, irking me through the fading flashes. He too, was one to mock me! Yet, his next words left me astonished.

“That company sells no longer, not for half a decade, as countless fell victim as you did.” He swung his head in regret and lifted his heavy eyebrows my way. “You were lucky to have survived. And survive you shall, my lad! No longer will you writhe and worry over what should be enjoyed. We will see to it that you recover and live a life where the sun is in your favour.”

And they did. For three long years, I dipped in and out of surgery, of recovery and tests, and finally, after a tearful parting with encouraging smacks to the back, I took a step outside, free from a hat and cloak and glasses, free from the sunscreen that held me captive for as long as time allowed my memories.

My hands shot to the sun as I found only a pleasant tingle, only a warmth that tussled my unkempt hair. And I cried. I cried and screamed praises to the Heavens, to the sun, and I screamed thanks to the dark and the shelter, and I cursed to no end the perils I had faced for not taking the risk to enjoy the sun's pure bathe.

And I crumpled to the dirt, croaking and wheezing and flaking from all angles as the flares and pulses overtook me, as I shriveled and faded to bone, to ash, and vanished over the village that discarded my being, into sunlight's goodness.