There was no one event in particular that made Trevor realize he’d never truly witnessed a sunrise. Obviously, he’d been up when the sun was rising hundreds of times over the course of his life, but he’d never anticipated it and given it his complete focus. Once this realization was made, he knew this oversight must be corrected in all haste.
So the next day, he slept in late and ate a healthy dinner and when the sun was ready to set, he braced himself for what was sure to be a long night. A long night that would end with a sunrise.
He couldn’t have picked a better night. It was early summer and the temperature was nice enough that he wouldn’t even need a jacket. He could stroll leisurely into a nearby nature preserve and spend the night hiking up the side of a small mountain so that at the appropriate time, he’d have a front row seat for the big reveal.
About an hour after the sun had disappeared below the horizon, he craned his neck up and really looked at the clouds. He drank them in. Up until that moment, he’d never drunk in a sky. The clouds looked like a cross between a quilt and the skin of an old giraffe he’d seen at the zoo. If that giraffe had sported a fluffier pelt. The longer he looked up, the bigger the sky got until it was enormous and he felt a bit dizzy. He’d drunk in too much sky.
The giraffe skin made him remember a trip to the zoo he’d taken with an old best friend. They had seen a camel whose beleaguered hump had fallen and was just laying on its back and he told his friend that it was because the camel was unhappy. His friend corrected him and said that he was thinking of killer whales.
“Oh, you’re right,” Trevor had replied. “They hate captivity.”
“We’re all captives to some extent,” said his ex-best friend whose name would eventually come to him. He’d said it very casually and with no drama and they moved on to the pandas.
Surrounded by trees, there’s always a small rustling noise going on somewhere. Be it the breeze or an unseen animal, there’s always something to listen to.
At about ten o’clock, he remembered that when he was a kid, he’d been so impressed with a classmate’s drawing of a dragon, he’d bought it from him and then told his mother that he’d drawn it. She didn’t believe him for a second and it infuriated him.
“Why couldn’t I have drawn this?” he asked her.
“That’s not how you draw,” she said tactfully.
“Well, you’re wrong. I drew this,” he replied defiantly.
His mother got up from the table and returned with a piece of paper and pencil. “OK then. Draw me a dragon.”
Almost immediately, he’d regretted trying. His dragon was awful. He was an awful artist and this dragon was starting off particularly awfully. About a third of the way through its dopey-looking face, he abandoned the effort and stormed off.
Trevor took a deep breath and realized how much he missed his mother. To have someone who cared enough about you to know how your terrible dragon would look before you even drew it was something that doesn’t come along a lot in life.
Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted.
The clouds that looked like fluffy giraffe skin had moved on and now the sky was clear. Really clear. Crazy clear. He felt like he was standing on a rock floating in the middle of a black abyss. Everything dropped away except the little points of light that he knew were in fact giant balls of burning gas billions of light years away. He suddenly missed his giant ball of burning gas.
At about one o’clock, he realized his ball of gas was still burning away and if he were only on the other side of 7,917 miles of rock, he could feel its warmth on his face. Instead, he was facing the wrong way and a small chill ran through his spine. The dark has its charms, but he missed the light.
At two o’clock, he remembered a time when he dropped his pen while working. He looked down but couldn’t find it. Instead of just getting a new black pen, he scoured the cream-colored carpet under his feet. He scooted around in his chair, looking. It had to be there somewhere. It wasn’t. He began to move furniture, intent on finding it. Had he imagined dropping it? Had he imagined he’d been working? Eventually, he found the pen behind his desk. It was impossible though. There was no way it could have bounced or rolled there. No way at all. He never figured it out and now he wondered if he’d just imagined the whole thing.
At about three o’clock, he remembered an old girlfriend who would talk in her sleep but only moments before waking up, so most mornings started off confusing; he was forced to admit to himself that he didn’t know if he wished her well or not. He liked her and they parted ways mostly (about 83%) friendly, but when he thought about her being happy without him, it hurt a bit. When he thought about the possibility that she was unhappy, it also hurt. No wonder he buried his emotions whenever he had the chance.
“You don’t see rock or balls of gas getting so conflicted,” he said to himself.
He arrived at the top of the mountain, which anyone who was familiar with real mountains would definitely think of as a hill, in plenty of time. Crickets provided the soundtrack. He’d spent the night wandering through a forest, which anyone who was familiar with real forests would definitely think of as the suburbs, alone with his thoughts and he was ready to wrap things up.
He sat down, cross-legged and waited. Excited.
Finally, it started.
A purple glow that slowly turned red. Orange made an appearance and suddenly, the entire horizon was on fire.
And slowly, his eyes adjusted and he saw it.
A single shaft of light.
His long night was almost over.
The sun.
His world was turning (at a thousand miles an hour).
He realized he was crying.