Dating : Reawakened Sun

A Short Story

The Sigma Male pulled himself from sleep on his bed of coarse stone where sand met stream and wild forest, beside the plains of the Serengeti. His fingers moved slowly through warm grains and jagged pebbles. He sat far from the other ancient humans but close enough for he was their wisest man. He and the others in the troop depended upon each other yet he was the only one content alone.

He would lay still for a time with eyes closed, seeing all that his mind conjured. He was always the first of their troop to arise, he did so each morning with the sun, and watched it consume the night and spread across the horizon as he watched in utter awe. Yet this day, when dawn came, the light did not come with it. Attempting to shake off the weary night, he shuffled his form, and the fur that covered it completely stood.

Through his eyelids, the radiance did not flow as it had each day of his existence. He tore his eyes open through the salt that covered them and gazed upwards. Habit told him that it was morning. But the sun above did not shine. He looked around and jumped upright, caught in a wave of adrenaline. He looked frantically around but the night was all he now had.

Every day the light came. Every day he arose, luminance stayed and survival came with it. Just the evening before, he and the troop of apelike men and women wandered the forests and plains under the ever-reliable light, feeding their ever returning thirst and hunger. He began to fear a never-ending night, a dying to the light. He paced around, knuckles scraping on the unseen stone. He looked towards the sky. Where was the great sphere of flame?

Eventually, he fell to his knees as a single ring caught his eyes and was seared into his sight whether his eyes opened or closed. The eclipsed sun left only a thin, false ring to fool him. Yet he would have to find the light or his life would flee with it. He thought again of the previous day, just as he began to smell spring, just as the sparse fruits began to bloom. He would have soon sought sustenance and perhaps a mate, yet he could not seek what would not be seen. He could not even glimpse his own feet or the treetops above his face, or the light that should have shown through.

Now his eyes had adjusted to the dark and rough outlines came as imitations of what he had known his whole life. Stones were struck together and he turned towards the sound. Bracing himself against the creatures of the night. Sparks were flung from the stones and he caught the visage of his fellows. He now strode towards the Alpha Male and he could almost make out his rough features in the light of the sparks, the protruding jawline, the hint of size to his upper skull, and the hesitation he had never before seen in their leader’s eyes. The Alpha Male feared the night as he did. For so long the Sigma Male had been the most trusted advisor to the Alpha Male, they depended upon each other, they had led the troop to survive as few had done in the unforgiving wild but now, neither knew how to proceed under the eclipsed sun.

The two frantically hooted and grunted to each other. It was then he knew that from here life would never return to its seamless survival, the routine of its smooth essence, whatever dared eclipse the star had torn it from the grasp of the ancient humans. The Sigma Male flung the stones the rest of the distraught apes had attempted to produce light from. What purpose could the once fearless sun possibly hold for it to hide so suddenly? Light would not come from mere sparks from stones.

Above, the Sigma Male searched for a sign of the great flames that had given them everything; the warmth of the morning, the shimmer that led the troop to the pure streams, their precious food. He saw nothing in the sky other than the false ring of light flowing like the fleeting flames they once used to heat their meat. He was terrified of nothingness, for he had always had something. He caught the motion of the light in his eyes. More of the troop gathered around the Sigma Male and he shook off the tugs from his friends and family on the long fur of his arms. He had no answers for them. He did not know the way towards restored sunlight.

But then something caught his eye, a single spot of light in the sky. A star billions of lightyears distant, sparking wonder in his eye. Born of mystery and a desire to know he suddenly had his first semblance of human thought. He felt through his instinctual reason that he was as distant from the star as it was from him. A long way to go to reach the morn.

Their survival would not come from a single never-ending sun far above them. He wondered what was there beside the lights above.

The troop settled as he stood tall, the others quieted and looked with him. He pointed upwards as a dark body removed itself from the sun, and he glimpsed its eminence as if it had been ages since it last reared its face.

It would be a long, winding path for their people and their future. Survival would never come as easily for them as simple light to show the way.

The Sigma Male picked up stones they had prepared the day before for today’s hunt and handed them to his people. The Alpha Male nodded almost imperceptibly as the Sigma Male placed one in his hand. They made their way towards the trees to the west, ready to earn their place beside the reawakened sun.