The Monster and his Sun--Sumbal

 The monster only emerged at night while the soft blanket of the moon covered his portion of the globe. When the veil of night lifted, he could be found hiding underneath the oak frame of the bed. Here, from dawn till dusk, resided the monster.

The nature of this monster was rather curious; he was not a troublesome monster, nor a rude boisterous one, but one that quietly ruminated while the sun’s rays seeped into the vacant room, warming the walls with abendrot hues. He would oftentimes ponder over the abilities of the human’s sacred star, why ever they would bathe in this yellow saturation.

Something of it, although perhaps it may have been a pretense, seemed smothering to him. Of the five hundred years he lived on the desolate planet humans called Earth, he desired nothing more than to banish that insidious, gleaming fiend. But alas, he lacked such capabilities and instead sought a substitute to satiate his fleeing endeavors. That is where he came upon the renowned creation of bed frames. Oak, cedar, steel, he did not mind from which material they were crafted. They were the bones in which he lived. Like a cavern or somber cave, he would conceal himself from the external world, often considered himself as the heart in a ribcage, giving vitality to an otherwise mundane structure. And at first unbeknownst to him, he encountered a multitude of friends here as well: trifle insects and little fuzzy bunnies, objectively soundless souls. Although they made him more hyper-aware of his loneliness, he knew he would be free from incessant judgment or prolonged stares, the venom of the deplorable and unpalatable.

But above everything, The bed frame brought forth a consuming shadow, the most venerable force he ever came to witness. Of all the hurricanes and trembles of the earth, the peremptory darkness surmounted them all. Living under the human’s bed gave him stupendous pleasure and quelled his fears. He could blanket himself with the quiet darkness and avoid the abrasive touch of the daytime’s light.

The monster understood that for centuries, the darkness, paradoxically, became a symbol for both the heinous and the hushed fightful souls. During the Romantic movement, a creative period he adored, the artists haphazardly mixed Lamp Black or Charcoal Grey with tints of Cobalt Blue, gently applying it to canvas with authentic fibers to create large foreboding scenes, inciting curiosity and marvel, a cornucopia of safely concealed treasures. It was a depth to which he was unwittingly drawn to, like a moth to a lantern, except it did not blind him. In his favorite, “The Fisherman at Sea” by Jacob Mallord, the darkness and the moonlight intertwining in a graceful dance, captivated him. The gentle boat floating amidst the sorrowful sea spoke in lyrics whenever he laid his eyes on the piece. Darkness sprung forth rivulets of emotions, for the unbridled truth, that sunlight would otherwise conceal. The monster felt true in the darkness, he would not have to hide his facets for the world to see in the lack of light.

He often grew frustrated thinking of man's arrogance regarding their perception of light and darkness’s fatal dance. “Why do they always say light is there to fill in the dark? When the light diminishes, dark is there to take its place,” he justified.

But perhaps there was more to consider. Intrinsically, he feared the light, sunlight in particular. He read in one of human’s dust-ridden encyclopedias, while they were away one night, that the sun, ​Solis​, 1.989 x 103​ 0​ kg, was the result of a process called ​nuclear fusion​, and every second, atoms and their electrons would be torn from one another in a violent reaction, while nuclei would engage in a war that sent solar flares and produced a visual jubilee that extended for light-years, suffocating the planets and other astral bodies with strange hues. Why ever would humans enjoy that?

In contrast, there existed his greatest love: the moon. The moon cries every night as she is scathed by the sun, he reasoned. Her kindness compels her; she transforms the ravenous light into something amiable, pacifying the anger of the sun; when sunlight runs amok, moonlight conciliates it. If light had a metamorphosis then the moon was the final scheme. ​Her​ light deviated from the abhorrent sun’s. ​She​ had brilliance,​ giving a glow that separated her powers from that of the vicious sun’s. The evening stars were similar. They also selflessly relinquished their soft splendor for the humans to gaze upon, respecting the presence of the darkness and coexisting with it, swimming with the revolutions of Earth. The monster rejoiced in knowing that the moon, stars, and the sea of darkness would conceal his insecurities, for he oftentimes felt quite hideous.

But one day, a tormenting revelation came to the monster, harrowing him. That same cursed encyclopedia with the wonderful yet menacing gift of knowledge, told him something not half a millennium alive managed to teach him. the starlight, moonlight, they were all in some way synonymous to ​sunlight​. The moon, in fact, did nothing to abate the violent force other than merely reflect it, the metamorphosis he revered was merely a semblance. And the stars... they were no better than the sun.

He came out one night. draped in the quiet moonlight of the generous full moon, ruminating over what lay beyond in the heavens. The stars that he cherished so dearly, they were also suns. They, despite their elusive perception in the night’s celestial sphere, were not exempt from the destructive behavior of the irate spheres of gas. They held the same violent rage as the morning star he feared. His heart ached from such a realization. Tears traced his cheeks and jagged, protruding teeth. The sword of deception stung him, driving through his tattered body. The air, like lighting, sequestered his breath as he fell to his nadir, and betrayal took refuge in his body, ripping apart his fragile heart and lungs. Why would his love hide the truth from him? His sorrow manifested into anger and in a second he rose, incensed like a wildfire, consumed like a forest. Suddenly, his anger turned towards the sun, the object that incited his agony.

“That sun... it looks so overwhelming. How do humans function in its light, doesn’t it hurt as it has just hurt me?” He threw his fists down in retaliation. “It hurts and it scathes, yet they love it? How can they love it? If love is pain then I can never want it!”

The following days, the monster sought solace underneath the bed. Days, weeks, until three months passed. His anger evidently quelled, like the once expeditious rivers during a dry season, revealing the open wound in his heart. The obscuring clouds of irrationality, guided by precarious gales of agony, moved from his head to elsewhere, freeing him to contemplate with reason. The seedlings of healing sprouted cotyledons embedding the notion of forgiveness. And then, a thought struck him:

What if he touched the sunlight?

The notion, although at first unfathomable, came to him in his period of retrospection. “Perhaps I am wrong to blame the moon... although I was ignorant of the sun and moon’s dynamic, I still don’t understand the nature of their relationship. Perhaps I am wrong to judge the sun. I judged the moon and stars fallaciously for five hundred years, I must have an open mind.”

Then alas, he gathered his courage and emerged from the bed when golden steaks flitted across the room. He never felt so exposed, so vulnerable, so insecure in his body. He looked back, losing his tenacity, but before he could flee or touch the sun, ​the sun ​touched ​him.​

The world stopped revolving.

His coat of silver fur shimmered with the infinitesimal particles of dust floating about, - “ruddy vestiges,” he read somewhere - and accentuated the indigo hues embedded within his long glossy claws he never knew he possessed. He caught his gaze in the mirror and looked at himself, momentarily stupefied from his reflection.

He looked dazzling.​

A torrent of expeditious emotions flooded throughout him, cascading like the golden rain that painted the world in soft amber. If the moon and darkness allowed him to liberate his every facet, then the sun revealed ​more​.

“I’ve been so cruel to myself...” He thought, “my entire life I’ve hidden from the sunlight only to realize how beautiful I feel in it.” A grin crept upon his happy countenance. He danced in jubilee and new esoteric splendor. His feelings of delight transcended any previous feeling he had ever known. His dubiety of the sun lost all significance.

He felt beautiful.

This light was so gentle, so kind, the most generous force he ever came across. In the ineffable warmth he fell in love again, but this time with the truth, he fell in love, one he would never, or ever want to, escape from.