Le Soleil

He skipped along the surface of the sun, happy to finally be home. It was a slow, majestic skip, worthy of the sun-god himself. It had been a long journey, and there was nothing like the warmth of the sun to keep one happy and healthy, especially when one lived in it. The familiar comforts of home brought back a certain nostalgia, a certain joy that propelled him from each flaming geyser of hydrogen and carbon to the next. He couldn’t believe how long it had been since he had seen his familiar bedside, by the core of the sun, where temperatures reached in excess of 15,000,000 kelvin. The servants of his dominion crept forth from their hiding places, their fear quickly dispelled as he sauntered forth boldly. The little sun nymphs flew beside him, singing their anthems and praises to their god, their small wings bespeckled with molten flapping furiously with joy. He took time to greet each one of them, carefully, placing his hands on each of them and in turn blessing their endeavors to keep the vast machine that we know as the sun turning, turning every so slowing. The sun required constant care—the unruly electrons had to be kept in line, the hydrogen had to be fused into helium, the helium into larger elements. The larger solar flares had to be tamed in order to avoid destroying the universe. He was slightly in awe of how it had all kept together in his long absence. On the long, lonely nights spent drifting through space, back to his home, he had envisioned scenes of terror, the frightful exploitation of the sun nymphs by some restless creation of his long forgotten in his youth, the loss of control over the complex chemical procedures necessary for the functioning of the sun, the destruction of a couple of the lesser planets of the solar system due to excess radiation and heat.

The voyage had been a long one, and necessarily so. He did not often meddle in the affairs of men, as they no longer took little interest in his doings. His was a duty to serve, not to be served, and if man had long since forgotten him, he did not forget his duty. From time to time he attempted to make men remember—perhaps arrange an eclipse with the moon, or put on a little night show in the northern climes of the planet of men. He felt vague regret about the destruction of life on the surrounding planets, but they had just show too little interest in cooperation, and early experiments were quickly eliminated through a series of accidents, whether from too much heat or too little. But man was another story. He had thrived through it all—through the great worker strikes from the early years to the industrial accidents of a rapidly maturing star experiencing some rather uncomfortable growing pains. He was more or less impressed—when he first got the job, as inexperienced as he was, he had expected to make a lot of mistakes. And of course, he did. Lots. But he felt like he was finally starting to get the hang of the constant rotations, the difficult mathematical calculations, the directing of the heat, until just recently. That’s when man, who had all but forgotten the ancient gods, the nature spirits, the Greek legends of before, suddenly remembered again. 

-James Juchau (First line credit: Unknown)