Sunday Survival

Lunar Awakening

The sun sets over the horizon in Athens. Sunday is sitting by the window, touching her toes and bending over like a folded blanket. Her forehead touches her knees, her arms stretch out over her legs, and her back is round like a turtle shell. She lifts her head gazes through the glass and watches the sun's rays painting the clouds pink, blue, and orange hues around a bright moon over the rooftops of this ancient city. For the first time in a year and a half she feels the light penetrate the darkness in her heart.

Sunday is still in disbelief as to how she arrived in Athens, for a historic solar eclipse no less. Over a year ago, she lost her angel Dalia to cancer. The years of treatments and surgeries had beaten her down until she had no more fight within her. The emotional blows from years of fighting by her side, only to have lost the battle, left Sunday irreversibly damaged from the inside out. Her pain seems to emanate from her core to her exterior, twisting her mouth down, furrowing her brow, and constraining her breath in.

She received an email from Marriott in her inbox a month ago asking her to sign up for contest to win a trip to Athens. Sunday entered it knowing that there was no chance at winning (all contests are rigged she thought), but she filled out the online form and clicked "yes" to the terms. The dream of Athens was a good enough reason to go through the procedural steps early in the morning before work.

Sunday did think of the Athens trip often, where she would go, who she would meet, and the food that she would sample. And then, a miracle happened and she received an email that she had actually won! As she sits on the window seat in her hotel in Athens, she still cannot believe her good fortune.