Scorching Sunspots

There’s an enlightening episode of the Simpson’s, where Bart and Homer are having a heated discussion about the Sun and Bart suddenly asks, “Dad is the sun, God?” Homer says, “Yes son” and leaves it at that.

With global warming spinning from both sides, I often think about our good friend Sol. If you hold him up next to an SUV, he makes the rig look rather infinitesimal.

Sometimes I find myself worrying that our orbit is not magically tethered to Mister Soul. How does his baking oven even work? The scientist with the longest beard pretends to know about who esoterically controls our sundials. And now we’ve isolated temperatures in the lab that are even hotter than Our Father’s Son (and off the charts like John Lennon). How much do we pay the sentries who guard those hellish gates?

When I worked a meter reader, there was plenty of time to contemplate the heat. But when I found myself thinking about it too deeply, I felt like I was getting burned. Five leap years ago, over on Highland Avenue, I found myself lost in dark thought. I had a strong compulsion that we were blindly heading for disaster by not watching our sun close enough and the lazy dogs in our government had become jaded, thoughtlessly basking in their cushy sun too long.

As I screamed about our insanity, I thrust my tools down into Highland Avenue’s shadowy gutter, next to where a sunspot had scorched the earth. It was an intense panic episode, as they label it; but still a large part of me thought it was called for. After this episode, I slowly returned to normal, and went on to finish my meter route that afternoon. Fortunately, nobody called in on me by reporting my sunny badge number to city authorities. They were inside their soul kitchens gazing at the sunset channel.

Little kids around the world ceaselessly paint smiles on the sun. I yearn for the day when I can eclipse these revolving bad feelings. A day when my beard grows out long again and I follow their lead by simply pretending to kiss the nutritious sun and display a sunnier smile.

Keep it simple stupid. Kiss the sun, to lick the dark, before you kick the can.