The Sun Is Always There.

Justin Lo

When I was still young, my father always had this saying: “The wind may change its direction, and people may fall in and out of love, but the sun, now that is always there – up in the sky, watching over us.” At that age, I just took it at face value, but now I think I’m beginning to understand. Like a guardian over our entire civilization, that has been there since the dawn of our time, at least, it has hung there, shining down brightly on us, a constant companion.

I look outside at the children playing on the rocks, spinning spinning as they glide through the air. I always tell them, only one jump allowed per chirp, but sometimes they don’t listen and jump twice or even three times, even though they know that it is wasting three whole hours! What a shame. Children could be so much more productive.

I even take them to the cliffs once a year, where we have the famous picnics in the air. One might be falling for ten, twenty hours, goodness, and it’s quite relaxing to watch the colors of the stony ledges as they trickle upwards. And then of course you fall softly onto the gentle, welcome hands of the park staff at the bottom (if you remember the call them).

But this year, my children are begging me to take them to the waterfall. I used to be deathly afraid of going there, but my wife has convinced me that it might be interesting after all. They say that you can make artwork out of the droplets beside you, and I personally would like to see if I might fashion a tree out of one, or something like that.

The doorlight flashes, and I walk over to the door to greet my wife. She is holding an enormous package.

“What might this be?” I ask, kissing her gently on the forehead as the sound of her car coming into the garage and turning off reaches my ears.

“The legendary warm meat of Fireton,” she says proudly.

“I don’t believe it!” I exclaim, but she is right. The meat is indeed exquisitely cooked, from the Fireton hundreds of miles away. “It must have taken years for them to make this.”

“Oh, it will be worth it,” my wife says, flashing the yardlights so that our children might stop jumping and come back in. “Ugh,” she groans, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head. “Kyle’s not even at the apex. How many times have I told them, they can’t start a jump if it’s after four!”

I laugh and reply, “Kids will be kids, just as the sun is always there.”