Ephemeris

8 : Hourglass

Daniel was awoken by a beam of early morning sun passing through a small hole in a curtain, invading his sleep. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. "That's a nice dream. I was a gladiator in an arena, as Dad promised from the video," he said while he defiantly shook his fist in the air, daydreaming about winning a match.

I am glad that Daddy's doing well. He was talking about an engine I couldn't understand, explaining it with scientific jargon. Outer space gave him a whole lot of space. But he is far away from us, far away from me, he thought, looking at the ceiling and allowing his thoughts to drift ahead, planning his daily tasks. Cleaning the solar panels, as requested by his father, was his priority.

The boy felt his spine was not aligned momentarily, so he stretched his arms and legs as far as possible and contorted his back. A crunchy snap released the tension on his spine. "Sweet!" he sighed, "How I wish I could snuggle down in my bed all day." He rolled his lazy body across the mattress and got mummified with the blanket like a burrito. I am too jealous that half the world is sleeping right now, and I am in the other half needed to shake some lazy bones, he thought. He turned another roll but was startled when he plunged off the edge of his bed.

"Ouch!" he fussed, then grabbed the curtain, hoisting him up.

He trailed his palms through the sky-blue drape. He spotted the hole and covered the invading light beam with his fingers. It was again another sunny day, drenched with torturous torrid heat. The curtains split up, allowing in more light, soaking the room with light as he pushed them apart. The piercing golden radiance stabbed his eyes. He turned around and saw his torpid body cast a tapering shadow across the room. Dust particles glistened like the glittery flakes swirling through the water of a snow globe. "Daniel, wake up! Wake up!" he said, convincing his lifeless spirit as he slapped his sleepy face with his palms. "Move your muscles!"

An inch of movement by the toy chest caught his attention.

He squinted. A mouse? Potti? Or maybe just a figment of my spiraling morning imagination, he thought. Then he shook his body and fixed the beddings.

Daniel wore his bold mask on and embarked on his everyday workload, for it was a good thing to divert him from the wound of the past. Distractions by distractions, his mind was frolicking, cutting off from the view of his stupidity—the murder he committed that night. But the wound became cancer, a severe disease spreading all through many parts of his body, metastasizing throughout the insides of the house and poisoning the greens outside. Distractions became his pills to move forward, never to look back.

His persistence and sacrifice were too great when it came to fixing his fractured family. He invested sweat in things he knew could help him mend the bond. Nevertheless, he found his purpose. All these acts of giving up he was doing would someday pay off—a significant tit-for-tat.

The morning sailed smoothly, slipped through the high noon, and went beyond the afternoon. Daniel rushed to the garden, squeezing through a door while hauling a collapsible ladder. He fixed the ladder and climbed, holding the garden hose but was surprised by the thick dirt accumulated on the solar panels. He first tried to squirt water to do the job alone, but it was no use. Thus, he returned inside with a bucket of soapy water and a soft sponge floating like a buoy on the foamy suds. He carefully went up the ladder bit by bit and skipped on the roof excitedly, spilling some soapsuds. He wasted no time scrubbing the panels right away.

The canopy of leafless boughs of the mahogany trees was in some way helping to block the slanting afternoon yellow light, providing him with shade. Daniel was drenched in sweat, and his heart pounded after cleaning the solar panels. The sweat was pouring on his white face. He then wiped the beads of dew off his forehead. He leaned back with his head on one side, gazing to the left, surveying the golden horizon. The suburb was soaked under the sun's supremacy that even the thin feathery clouds kept out of the sunbeams pathway. The beams were like arrows raining down from the cloudless skies, scorching the pavement and drying the meadow. Everything below—tethered on Earth—was at penance, pleading with the source of heat and light.