by Mar Ovsheid
The big egg that’s been sitting in the sky finally cracks, and a Bad Sun comes tumbling down to earth.
“Happy to be here,” the orb announces, core shrouded by half-gold light, “to grant all eyes the gift of being perceived exactly as one wishes to be seen.”
“What?” The baker to your right taunts the star.
“Beauty by the eye of the one being beheld.” The glow explains. “How should we all see you?”
“Slimmer, with long hair and symmetrical eyes.”
“Let it be.” As the Bad Egg speaks, the shine of the True Sun dumbly increases, illuminating previously unseen qualities of the once stout, short, fine-haired baker. In the new light, she’s all the things she’s dreamed of.
The entranced crowd rushes the Bad Sun, and you spy curious wanderers climbing downwards into the valley, towards the spectacle. Every neighbor receives their miracle, sky growing brighter as the creatures are born into their fantasies. But you remember old stories— wishing wells with impish designs, sly genies that delight in the bait-and-switch of tongues.
“For you?” You still can’t make out the face behind the veil of light, eyes burning from its radiance and the mounting brilliance of the Sun.
“Nothing for me.” You hold your hopes inside, stored safely in the back of your throat.
The hatchling loses interest and greets newcomers from across the plateau, swallowing their insecurities with luminosity.
You stand until you can’t anymore, then sit, and eventually fall flat onto the cracking earth. Despite the True Sun’s uncontained light blinding everyone to their own fresh perfection, unhappy mouths continue offering fuel for the fallen star’s workings.
“I’ve thought of something.” You can barely speak, throat parched and hot skin sticking to your teeth as the words come out.
“Yes?” The Bad Sun looms over your crumpled body. “Anything.”
“I want to see myself in the clouds.”
The king’s corona shifts, though it doesn’t offer a reply.
“I want to see my face up there,” you doggedly point to the sky, “in the clouds.”
Bound by promise, the yolk disintegrates your body into water, raises it, and spreads it across the horizon. You collect yourself into a single cloud, enjoy the view, and block out the Real Sun. You trickle down rain, aiming for the imposter.
“Stop!” In the dim light, the enchanted people watch their beautiful features melt away, your droplets extinguishing the rings of false flame that encircle the Bad Sun. Its light reduces down to little more than a spark, flooded by the storm of reconciliation. All’s equal, again, except for you, up in the atmosphere.
“Let the sun shine.” The kneeling people moan. “We can barely see down here.”
As you focus your mind on falling, an invisible hand grasps your ankles and keeps you suspended. You watch the shrunken skeleton of the wish-granter scurry off, towards the mountains, set to curse the erring people that live there.
“You’re more useful to me where you are,” an unfamiliar voice mumbles, “eclipsing the sun, and keeping the flowers from blooming so far past their roots that they damage themselves beyond repair.”
Without your consent, the wind carries you southwards to higher elevations, on the trail of the mask maker. Over and over, the Bad Egg does its deeds— purifying vision, crafting new faces, brightening the sky. But your storminess always catches up, containing the light, raining down the hazy muddiness better suited to a world where no one sees each other exactly as they should.
Mar Ovsheid is a spoilsport and feral confetti angler. Her work has appeared in Cream Scene Carnival, Wild Roof Journal, Scavengers, Fatal Flaw, and Feign, among others. Some of her work and dogies can be seen by visiting @mar_ovsheid on Instagram.
