Escaping The Sunlight, Preface, Page 7

By BBYCGN

Among the panic of love’s poverty, something inside the girl- a consuming thing– stirred. It was a gleaming essence that dazzled her surroundings and guaranteed to put an end to the agonizing asphyxiation of a love-deprived heart. This raw energy supplied purpose to the girl’s ungrounded existence. But its assurance ordered certain rituals of execution to draw breath. This promise permeated every sense in its life-giving commitment and would revive her shattered self.

One such stipulated formality was the total avoidance, or rather, the obsession of forbidding any sunlight to touch her. Despite the profound expense, nothing was too costly to feed her mad starvation.

Escaping the one thing that most cannot evade depended on the girl’s OCD taking charge and the constant envisioning of love’s promise. The girl turned her life upside-down and inside-out 365 days a year to hide from life’s most consuming presence- the sunshine.

She reasoned inside her mind, “If I can escape the impossible, then I will deserve the unattainable!”

Desperation for reciprocated love eclipsed all reason. It convinced her the sun was a wicked hindrance to love; therefore, she could not/would not withstand it.

Besides, the sunlight also made Mommy’s monstrous features, along with its hateful glare (as well as the dump in which the girl lived because of the demon’s filth) more visible. Everything was more apparent thanks to the sun- almost to the point of magnification. And the girl couldn’t tolerate what she saw. Living in her world was painful; she couldn’t bear to be reminded of it. In fact, apart from the expectation of her heart’s one desire, she wanted to die.

She surmised her unloved state found itself on account of her ugliness and unlovable personhood and she didn’t deserve love or even a sliver of human kindness. Therefore, in shame, she not only hid from the demon, and the sun but also so none would look upon her hideousness. She felt vulnerable and repulsed by her grotesque nature when the sun shone.

Apart from the girl’s terror of the demon, her fear of the sun kept her sealed away in her room for years. When the demon was in the hospital from an usual overdose, she would leave her refuge. Outside her bedroom, everything took on a foreign quality.

She stole into the darkest corners of her sludge-filled world undetected. Just as the world wanted nothing to do with her, she wanted the world to stay away from her, too. It was a two-way street. The world hated her, and she hated the world- and wanted to kill it.

Concealed, hiding away despite other’s jeers and laughter, smearing on a greasy-like substance promising to block the sunlight (that was only available at one pharmacy miles away), covering her bedroom with thick blankets that hung by rusty nails, and squeezing herself below the glove compartment space when riding in a car were just a few of her practices. Not knowing where the sun was on an overcast day was even worse. It could mean death to her heart (remaining alive in the torturous state of no love, concern, or validation of a self).

Paradoxically, the girl had felt the sun’s gold on her shoulders in the past and adored its ability to bring out glistening beauty in flowers, trees, and rolling hills; but she could not take part in its exquisite displays. She had to choose either the honeyed sun upon dancing bunnies and glittery feathered birds, or the radiant diamonds amongst the black velvet skies that would one day call her its own.

She chose the latter because it meant survival… more than survival; it meant rapturous bliss. She wanted to exist in the arms of love.

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