The Sun

“It went well, I think,” I said, almost breathless as I hurried down the sidewalk, precariously balancing my cellphone in the crook of my neck as I tried to fish the bus schedule out of my briefcase. My girlfriend was talking excitedly in my ear, barely audible above the din of schoolchildren shouting and playing around her. I told her I’d call her after my other interviews were over, and quickly stuffed the bus schedule into the crook of my arm. I reached the bus stop, set my briefcase down on the bench, and said “I love you,” and “Goodbye,” before snapping my phone shut and slipping it into my pocket.

“Nice day, isn’t it?”

I suppose I jumped a little, because as I turned to the girl who had spoken, she was giggling. She was obviously still school age, and was wearing a somewhat bastardized school uniform. Her top two buttons were undone, revealing a pentacle hanging around her neck. Her sleeves were rolled up, and although her hair was pulled up into a neat ponytail, streaks of a deep, dark red were plainly visible. Her stockings matched her skirt and tie, but were emblazoned with images of a cartoon dog.

I smiled automatically and nodded, saying, “Yeah, I suppose it is.” I sat down, putting my briefcase between my legs, and unfolded the bus schedule.

“You suppose?”

“I…” I hesitated. “Well, yes, it’s a nice day, isn’t it?”

“You just don’t seem too sure about it.” She giggled again.

“Sorry,” I said, smiling, “I’m just a little out of it today.” I went back to my bus schedule.

“You shouldn’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Apologize when you haven’t done anything wrong.”

I turned to her again, and watched as she reached into her enormous purse. Well, I assumed it was a purse—it was more than twice the size of anything my girlfriend carried. I expected her to pull out some eyeliner or a pack of clove cigarettes or something, but instead she pulled out a John Grisham novel and started reading.

We sat there in silence a few moments—her reading her novel, me trying to decipher the day’s bus schedule—and I was just beginning to figure the schedule out when she spoke again.

“How long have you been together?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You and whoever you were talking to.”

“Oh,” I said, “Rachel.” I tried to add up the months and years. “I think it’ll be… four years in September.”

“Wow,” she said, her eyes widening around her glasses, “that’s a long time.”

I faked a grin and she fell silent again. I went back to trying to find my bus on the schedule, but I’d barely brought the schedule back up before she spoke again.

“Are you in love with her?”

I crumpled the schedule in my lap and turned to the girl. “Look, no offense, but I don’t see how it’s any of your business.” She looked hurt, and I immediately regretted my tone. I tried to think of something to say to steer the conversation in another direction. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“Shouldn’t you be in some sweaty board meeting?” she shot back, obviously perturbed.

I laughed sheepishly. “You mean this suit? I’m just interviewing today. Trying to find a job, you know. Have to look the part, even when the part is a soulless corporate drone.” I shrugged.

She pretended to go back to her book, but a few seconds later she started talking again.

“I got kicked out of school.”

“Ouch,” I said, unsure what else to say.

“Yeah, ouch. You know, there are kids there that do all sorts of horrible stuff—smoke all day in the bathrooms, sneak out and have sex in the parking lot, all kinds of stuff—but try to participate in class and bring up a point the teachers don’t like, and you’re out of there before you know it.” She tried to laugh, but it wasn’t convincing.

“What did you say?”

“Well, you know, I go to a private school. Our Mother of the Immaculate Conception. Anyway, they just don’t like different ideas. You know, like, dissident voices or whatever.” She paused. “All I said was that I thought I could see why people used to worship the sun.”

“The sun?” I looked up, shielding my eyes. The sun was nearing the midday mark, hovering just above and a little behind us.

“Well, yeah. I mean, you know, all sorts of old cultures used to do it. People used to think that the sun gave life to everyone, that it was totally holy and stuff. And, I mean, they were kind of right—the sun powers plants, plants give us food and oxygen. Without the sun, we’d just be a frozen clump of rock flying around in space.”

“I suppose that’s true,” I said, “but how can you get kicked out for saying something like that? Surely they’ll let you back in if you ask.”

She turned away from me and blushed a little. “Well, it wasn’t quite as simple as all of that. I may have called my teacher a fascist… among other things.”

I laughed. “Sounds like high school, alright.”

She sighed. “My mom is going to kill me when I get home.” She started reading again.

I thought for a while, staring glassily at the schedule in front of me. Eventually, I asked, “Do you really believe that?”

“What? That my mom is going to kill me? Trust me, she will.”

“No, I mean, do you worship the sun?” I pointed at her pentacle. I knew a few things about pagan beliefs—one thing being that pentacles had nothing to do with Satanism—but not much else.

“Oh this?” she laughed. “No. No. I mean, I don’t really worship much of anything. I can just see why it would make sense to worship the sun.” She paused and held the pentacle in her hand. “I really just bought this because I thought it looked kind of cool.” She grinned and blushed, letting it fall back against her chest.

“You don’t worship anything? Why go to private school?”

“My mom,” she replied. “She’s not crazy into religion, but she thinks the schools are better. Doesn’t want me getting raped or stabbed or something. It’s a joke, though, because these schools are just as bad. They just have more money to cover it up with.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” I said, picking my words carefully, “what do you believe? I mean, are you a Christian, or something else?”

“Oh jeez,” she said apologetically, “you’re not, like, big into Christianity or anything, are you?”

“No,” I laughed, “not at all. Just interested. I was a lot older than you before I started questioning things.”

“Oh. Well, I guess I’m not sure entirely what I believe. I think that Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all those guys lived and were, like, really smart and had a lot of good things to teach people… but I’m not sure I can believe a lot of the more fantastical things, you know?” I nodded. “Like, I can believe all that stuff about the sun—it literally gives us life, in a way—but to believe that some guy could be born out of a peach or walk on water or all that… I just don’t know.”

She paused. “I guess I figure that I’m not in any hurry to figure it all out and make up my mind just yet. For now I just spend time thinking about some of the stuff people used to worship but gave up on a long time ago. Like the sun.” She laughed, and this time it was genuine. I was smiling at her.

“You know,” I said, “if you think about it, the sun is actually pretty amazing. We get just a tiny fraction of the energy that radiates off it, right? And that powers basically all the life on this planet in some form or another… just imagine how much of that energy just goes out into space and disappears.”

“Actually,” she said, teasingly, “none of it disappears. The laws of physics dictate that energy is neither created or destroyed.” She smiled. “We’ve been studying the transfer of energy this month.”

“Well, right, right.” I drifted off. When I realized she was still watching me, I smiled uncomfortably. “Well, anyway, I think I agree with you. It’s pretty amazing.”

We sat together for a few more minutes, making some small talk but usually staying silent. Her bus arrived first, and I waved to her as she took her seat at the window. I was still grinning. The sun felt warm on my back and hair, and I closed my eyes to revel in it for a moment.

“Penny for your thoughts, dude?”

I opened my eyes to see a thin bicycle delivery man stopped at the corner, wiping sweat from his forehead. He had on a pair of dark sunglasses, and his hair was also pulled up into a ponytail, safely tucked away beneath his helmet. I laughed and ran a hand through my warm hair.

“I was just thinking that I can see why people used to worship the sun.”