Yesterday was the perihelion, but the sun and I are old pros at this by now. I tossed up a rope and the sun hooked it over an extra loop of plasma, and we set up a message bucket easy as pie.
I told the sun about plans, about travels and hijinks and schemes, about how I intend to start smiling at people instead of looking at my feet so much. I told it about how my elbows are always wearing holes in my sweaters and how my hats always come apart at the seams, how I managed to dance in heels all night on a floor covered in confetti and not fall once. I told it about the specific feeling of sliding on to a smooth bench in a familiar place, of a soft wind ruffling my hair just before stepping in to a cab. Of late nights and hands in my hair, and the specific muscles that ache from laughing and nothing else.
I told it about a little yellow frog in Panama that waves at all the other frogs, friendly little golden frogs that can't be heard over the rushing of the water that they live near and had to adapt with gestures. Except that they're not in Panama anymore, not outside, because all the frogs were dying from a fungus and the scientists had to choose between taking them away or letting them die altogether. And now those riverbanks are unbroken green and no gold. About the dangers of breathing through your skin and seeing through your eyes.
The rest of the bucket I filled up with a rainbow, an atlas, and three funny jokes, and a sandwich and thermos of coffee and a blanket for the long trip back around. I hear it gets cold out there in space, even if you are the sun.
(You guys, I can't resist new things. It's troubling.)
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