The Final Testament of the Sun

Ice taps my helmet and overlarge goggles, and the sting upon my neck is clear and biting; it is here -- in the snow, the ration truck's lights trailing away, disappearing -- here I decide this is my final portion. Without permission (for who gives permission now?), I remove my protection, my gloves, my headgear, my coat. Snow and sleet fall as before, as they have, as they will, and in the midst of the cold I burn. This I do to make ready. Slowly, my boots shuffle of their own accord through the frozen slush to the shelter and the fire within that must never go out. It is signal; it is life. And yet the wood-gathering hours are few. We are few. Sitting now in front of the fire, the strong heat of its flames on my face, I'm reminded of a time from long ago. The flickering shadows on the hearth, they replay an image for me: It was summer, a morning in July, and the sunlight filtered onto our living room floor through the leaves of a large flowering pear tree that grew just outside the window. How similar to the dancing flames! (And, after all, isn't it only a matter of space? For we live upon the sun's hearth. An old thought from an old age, for the hearth lies darkened now, and cold.) Now, a life -- no, an age -- later, the words July and sun have gone with you. The blaze warms my almost-frozen feet -- the memory thaws, loosens my mind. Both fires, the one before me and the sun itself, teach me over again of your presence on the floor that July day. It's your face, mostly intent upon your blocks, but when you ask me to look it's your eyes that check to see if I've left off reading. "See?" You'd say. Your face and your eyes. I do see. And there, on the floor, where you've set up your game, the wind has made the sunlight in the leaves wild with delight. It dances on your arms, your hands. The movement of it all so rapid I was fooled by the effect: It seemed to me you were moving in step with the shadow and light on the floor, but you played through it, unaware of my thoughts. "And this is what I was telling you about," you said to me. "This bridge right here." A howling wind rattles the window panes. I've only just escaped the storm that yet rages, and the draft cuts my legs through cracks inumerable. This, too, prepares me. In the morning, if the wind has ceased -- or lessened, for in this new age it never ceases -- I will drive out past the boundaries. Once the Founders were gone, so soon gone, others saw wise to restrict our travels; those who are left, the few of us, know that beyond the boundaries is death, and yet we are not certain which side is now beyond. The ice tells me it has taken all -- all is beyond. Perhaps the leaders are wrong. Perhaps there are others within our reach, others who we should help. That was the thought of many at first: We should go to help. Now it is we who need help. The underground efforts to grow food and explore have failed. Those who retreated below are lost, cut off from those of us who stayed to watch for survivors. I stayed to watch for you. It's not every night I see your face on that July day. I slip into dreamless sleep, lulled by the heat, by the ice tapping on the roof and the windows, by the white noise of the radio I refuse to silence. But I've saved rations. I believe the idea of going beyond has awakened my memory of sunlight, of July. Sleep won't come for me tonight, for you sit with me here, and your play is there before my eyes -- you build a town with a house for us, and the bridge you're so proud of takes cars and trucks over a swelling green river. If I sit here next to you, will I break your town? -- You laugh -- Good, and I'll build you a treehouse. For an hour I've stretched out on the floor at the level of the fire. Stared into the orange, the blue underneath, the lapping yellow. I shiver. Close my eyes. Orange becomes red on my eyelids. The color is my transport, and it takes me as I am. July. Yes, we'll swim today. (I will not open my eyes.) I hear you; I feel the sun. Soon, we'll go soon, but let me lie here for a moment more and you play -- My door unlatches. An otherworldly shriek, like the waking of an ice god, shatters my mind. I rise and stand in its midst and look into the nothing it sustains, for I will neither bow to its terror nor to its glory. Is its glory not great? I reach into its depths -- is the whole earth not filled with such fury? "No!" I shout into the black. I seal the door and fall against it. Let the gods of the void wail and clash; this is not the world -- "The earth is like the sun's hearth." Sleep comes. Daylight cannot penetrate constant winter, yet we still call the twilight day (another old thought from an old age). There was a time I fell ill and had to retreat from my post to the shelter of the Deep Earth. They took me to a dim place where children came to see one more fallen Guardian. They know the torches' light but not the sun, and they have no memory of the stars. The words will pass away -- day, sun, stars, moon -- and why should they be taught? I saw the babes who are the grandmothers of those to come. The pale-skinned, the saucer-eyed, the long-clawed. In my sickness they came to me and bore me to Sheol; they bound my mouth to Silence and my hands to Stillness. Why struggle? I woke to utter night; who could say the earth above looked toward the sun or away? -- It was a joy to me (strange joy!) to return to the surface where the hail falls from above. The twilight glows. It is the hint of a never-dawn and promise of ever-night. Memory is a trick. History a farce. Who will speak against these thoughts? You. But from where? Gone long ago, yet the arc of your profile -- on the floor by the dancing leaf shadows -- this shape speaks to me. Your shape. The curve of your forehead, your chin; against all illusion you speak. I did not see you fall, nor did I place you in the ground. Did you find your way to Deep Earth? I've wondered this. Or do shelters dot the way beyond? I have spent weeks packing. Preparing. I will drive during twilight. The truck walls will not keep the cold away, I know. So I must tell you: I stare into the fire, build it up higher than is safe, and until my eyes see only fire-colors, I see and think of warmth, of light -- and this last sensation fools me now, for the skin over my cheekbones swears the July sun burns here. Do you think this oath will stand -- out there? I witness the oath of my body; I will gainsay the night. Soon, and too swiftly, the swirl of a new storm blots out what I would have driven through; have I planned for nothing? And who will read my words, these scratches, these mumblings of a fool from another age? Will you be found? I cannot remain; I cannot go -- the ice is new and thick, but behind it, yes, behind it and far beyond burns the sun. So I will signal you: I will set a new signal, set alight the shelter against the nothing that comes; and this, I will send this into the ground, into Deep Earth -- here, next to the flames, I will dig this testament's way to you and sleep, the July sun ever on my face. I will take your bridge; I walk it now with my eyes closed -- the orange -- the sun, the sun --