Photophobia is not a phase, tata!

Submitted into Contest #92 in response to: Write about a character who thinks they have a sun allergy.... view prompt

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Christian Coming of Age Gay

Dear Diary on this moonlit 4th Sunday of June,

How many times do I have to tell my pops that it's not a phase! My tata can see my skin burning like the roiling sands of the Sahara! My dad can sense the stinging heat whenever I am attacked by Sol's stinging rays! My father, withal, still cares so little to my corpus and calls my condition "an overreaction".

I remember how he say, when he wanted to surfboard, to "put on the sunscreen, kiddo" so we could "fight the high waves with our surfboarding skills"! Oh, it's not like I don't believe he fights the nymphs and Neptune's sea-dæmons with his holy and dignified dances . . . But it cannot be denied that Sol, a trickster-dæmon mocking our Sun, is destroying me specifically so as to vanquish the great lineage of water-bound knights! I can evidence this all by the many red and brown spots of Sol's ray-thin arrows piercing me, equally Sol sometimes pours the burning oils of corrupted light onto me that "tans" my skin so says my tata! Oh if only the damn "sunscreen" would have actually protected me, but it hasn't! But I am told to "simply shrug it off lest it gets real bad", yet here my skin testifies for me the great danger I am in!

I, too, remember when I tried theorizing why I was "photophobic" to explain this accursed affliction that makes my skin easily effaceable. Oh had I remembered this figure – we all called this crow-masked person a "plague-doctor" – and they told me that photophobia might be a byproduct transmitted by the "sanguine-addicted" sufferers. When I brought this to my father, he said that it was impossible for me to be bitten by a "vampire" nor be one! Going off that: "Vlad III the Impaler was felled by an uneasy, yet holy, alliance of the Ottomans and the Polish Hussars!" Going further off to describe for hours on end of how he helped in felling some "vamps" and desecrated all the unholy banners of those "blood-sucking fiends". To assure me they all felled and none escaped, he sputtered as he was shakily holding his wine cup this line: "we surrounded the entire country with the most holiest of signs from our One True God that we all shared". Stating that these holy signs radiated a holy Light that no unholy or unrepentant sinner could ever defy nor overcome, ergo: I couldn't be infected by proxy nor directly since "all the vampires died that day".

Though I do wish to believe my tata, I have my doubts as I recall this very handsome lad; oh he always liked shady spots wherever they were, and he always carried this nice umbrella with him as well. He had these very sharp, shark-ish teeth always stained by something red. That night-servant, whom my heart always melted for whenever our eyes crossed, always excused himself that he "ate some cherries and tangerines". What rubbish! I could tell, because the "plague-doctor" is no liar, he was a vampire. And I could sniff his iron-reeking line that one time when he went in to hug me, oh did it smell like he crunched on metal whenever he exhaled; the only liquid that could produce such stench is the red-viscous that flows in us, nothing us! He laughed when I brought this worry to him, but he swore his troth to me that – in truth – he ate an iron-laden dish as a gift from his metallurgical guild-master for his great work. Oh, I know he sucks at lying, but I know his voice told no lie there and yet I worry for this fool all too much.

However, and I still blush in shame that I reveal this to you my Dear Diary, I recall that one time he bested me in our mock-duel! After our match, I suffered the punishment where I had to close my eyes in anticipation of a move struck upon me that I couldn't brace for. Oh! He lied that he was going for a kiss, since his mouth "accidentally bit" me as he profusely apologized upon realizing his will was being tempted to feed his "sanguine-addiction"! Oh, how could I have let my guard down as almost made me "sanguine-addicted"?! Thankfully, the only pain he inflicted a lesser amenity: "photophobia". Yet, where was I in that one scene? Ah! By that day so many suns and moons ago, I really screamed something that I instantly regretted to him. He collapsed like a heavily-battered tower, I couldn't but collapse with him as I embraced his weeping corpus repenting for my unintended harsh words. Keeping his sore head full of my unintentionally evil words close to my bosom, singing those old songs and hymns that soon calmed us both.

Oh my Envious God! My heart still yearns for this trickster, and I knew he would go into the Earth and back to prove his love for me and to Thou as well! We then went under a palm tree, that shielded us from Sol's deadly rays of pseudo-lux; we clutched our crosses as we prayingly forgave each other, then begging to Thy Intersexual Son for forgiveness. Oh my Loving Lord, this was why I was skeptical of my father's grandiose claim that "vampires" could be stunted or harmed by holy Light: he was my testimony, lest I am now to find my honor in worshipping the moon as the lunatics outside my window seem to be doing . . . After that day, as an act of forgiving ourselves, we had kept our relationship a secret – mainly because I hadn't wanted this "sanguine-addicted" sufferer to be struck down. As I hope I can treat both of our ailments with the "plague-doctor" next week, hopefully the apothecary will be open at night!

Yet, if my pops is truly right that neither Sol nor a vampire afflicted this "photophobia" on me, then I must proclaim in anger that I am tired of the light inflicting this heat-inducing and skin-killing pain! What else but "photophobia" can afflict such great evils upon this corpus, what else He is who He is? I beseech Thou, whom nothing greater can be thought off, to make evident the truth of me which has not shined itself upon my eyes! I shall suffer all the journeys that I must suffer, for I know Thy Glory is infinitely more rewarding than what any temporal affliction can rob from me! And if I am looking incorrectly, then pray remove the darkness that clogs-up my eyes so that I may be able to look inwardly as I look outwardly in near perfection! Give my eyes the assist it needs to then look through the rotten darkness that represses the truth of my body!

And yet, if my skin is truly that frail but I am no sufferer of photophobia, then I pray – oh I pray – to the Lord, the Almighty, to strip this evil-condition of my skin from me. For whatever cause, my sin, that has caused this great punishment do I repent it even if I know not what evil I had caused to deserve it. But if I am indeed sinless, then I understand that I must suffer as Job had to understand Thou more truly. And if it was Satan who was permitted to do such evil, then my Heavenly King do I beseech Thou to strike upon my dumb head this fact and tell me whether or not I had remained faithful to you though the skin-deep hardships pressed upon me. Though I do thank Thou, my Lord, for giving me the strength to resist all evils, still do I want some confirmation of what my corpus is inflicted with so that I won't be anymore a weary traveler in my quest to find the truth of my body!

Perhaps I am lost in the lunacy of my thoughts, worshipping the lesser light that is only lit by the greater light. For I perhaps have obscured the true roots of my "photophobia", pinning it on something when there is no one to accuse. More so, maybe Thy Word has always been radiating so harshly against my skin for I have been lacking faith in everyone but my skepticism that I had placed higher than Thou. The "plague-doctor" works with what they have seen and worked upon with their own hands and eyes, they can only provide sage advice analogous to the probable route of my body's truth. The iron-ridden breath of my lover perhaps is just that: ridden with iron as they keep claiming. My tata perhaps is right to call my non-understanding an "overreaction" and I really need to apply "sunscreen" on myself more often. Perhaps, maybe, but no solid thing as my skepticism hasn't been able to find my body's truth when it has been turned its inquiry against itself to question its own validity!

So my Dear Diary, do I ask you to keep my troubled thoughts and berated breaths and weary weeps here until I find the truth of my body. For now I shall carry on with what makes the most sense: that I am perhaps not "photophobic" but I must get that tested out. Lest the Lord come to ease my self-shame and to let my head in His bosom, I shall carry on with this confusion. Yet, as I write on you Dear Diary, I find I am unable to provide a substantial cause for this grievous condition my body suffers. Perhaps that is the truth that the Word of the Lord is making blindingly clear: that my body merely is reacting unusually to the Sun's light. And that is a pleasant truth, albeit painfully acquired. Well, I must go as the Sun creeps over the horizon and my lover climbs the vine-wall to meet me today.

Goodbye for now, Dear Diary.

May 07, 2021 05:48

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