Fear the Life-giver

Spring is here, and with it? The necessary correlate of bright, warm weather, of course -- sunburns!

As temperatures rose above seventy, friends, family, and strangers stormed the gates of Central Park and shed articles of clothing as they ran for the middle of the lawn. Everyone except mothers with tiny, milky-skinned babies shunned the shade. They spread their superfluous bits of clothing in the sun-baked expanses of lawn where the dark shadowy tendrils of tree-branches could not reach - however low the sun dipped.
And they lay and they sighed in complete bliss and they thanked god, God, their mothers, anyone and everyone for the blinding bounty that shone upon them.
Some fell asleep, as if drugged by the penetrating rays. Some read, shielding their tender irises. And some simply watched, and breathed in, and hoped it never would end.
And when a chill breeze touched their arms and left little goose bumps behind in its fingerprints, they persevered, until the sun was gone they would stay.
Finally, with headaches and grass clinging to their bare calves, they left, huddling in previously discarded sweaters.
Maybe it happened on the bus home - their thighs felt raw against the plastic seat. Or maybe their sweaters - so soft earlier that day - rubbed holes in their shoulders. But it happened, first in denial, then, when they got home and turned on the ugly electric lights in their bathrooms, in acceptance.
The vivid pink, the deep red, the crimson, the lobster, the salmon, the fire-truck.
They poked their skin - not too hard - with their fingers, and saw it turn white, then back to red. And then they slathered themselves with aloe, a wet cool gooey electric green coat, and closed their eyes, and went to bed.

Flowers are called phototropic, because something innate inside of them cajoled them towards their life-giver, their sun.

On summer days in Central Park, it's hard to understand why we don't deserve the same classification. The difference? Every time we turn in grateful adoration towards the sun, every cell in our skin is warped, transformed, wrinkled, dried up, corrupted, killed.

It is one of the saddest things in the world.