Reading Room

Below is another selection indicating that Chris White, you guessed it, sucks.

The Tyrrany of a Sunny Day

Dr. Raul Raigosa had never been one for the outdoors. Human civilization had been a steady march to a climate-controlled, hassle-free bathroom experience, and he saw no reason to turn his back on 10,000 years of progress. He loved the indoors.

But it was a beautiful Saturday, 76 degrees with a light breeze and no humidity, and white fluffy clouds in the shapes of baby animals. He had not planned on going out that day; he had much to do right there in his office and an expanse of afternoon before him. And yet the animals rained scorn straight through his office window, into his face. "There are few days this nice," thought the doctor as guilt tightened its fat fingers around his throat. "It could rain the whole rest of the week. And if anyone asked what I did on such a day, and I told them I stayed in the office …"

He tried his best, closing his blinds and sticking his nose as far into a book as the binding would allow. But he could not block out the sounds of children playing in the field across the street or the rough howls of neighborhood dogs taking advantage of sun-dazed owners and trying to rape each other.

"I'll take a short walk," he finally sighed, "so then I can at least say I saw the sun."

Fifteen minutes later, he was quite bored and mildly sweaty, thinking of the work he had hoped to accomplish that day, as he strolled vacantly onto the grounds of the Capitol. There was a great crowd in the plaza. They were upset for different reasons: globalization, health care, genetically modified foods, the cancellation of their favorite science fiction show. They chose to express their collective anger through bullhorns and street theater, time-honored catalysts for change. In truth, if it had been raining, about 90 percent of the crowd would have skipped the rally and spent the afternoon at the movies or trying to find a decent hookah bar, not feeling quite angry enough to hold soggy posters. But at 76 degrees with a light breeze … who could sleep having neglected such just causes?

An acquaintance in the mob, the less esteemed Dr. Violeta Suarez, spotted the good doctor as he entered the plaza. She was a silly woman, the kind of person the doctor usually avoided by hiding behind vending machines on campus. But on the plaza there were no shadows. She generally had no use for the curmudgeon, but how often did such great and respected minds lend their presence to these events? If anyone asked him his involvement in the protest, and he had told them he stood at the back … Her esteem in the rabblerousing set was in peril, and so she applied a vice-like grip to his flabby forearm and dragged him to the vanguard. "Dr. Raigosa, that such a great mind would join us here today means so much to these people. Can I convince you to say some words?"

He did not want to say some words. "But I am so seldom asked to speak," he thought. "And they have all seen me in the crowd. To turn them down would be a great insult. And if anyone asked if I had supported any causes, and I told them I just kept to myself …" So he shuffled to the makeshift-stage, putting him on eye level with the fire-breathing street theater puppets, and formulated bland comments that might sound good through a bullhorn.

And then things went quite wrong. The crowd, intrigued by a speaker in tweed rather than the usual body paint, and hoping that this mystery speaker would be better than the last 43, surged forward. Just as the doctor began to speak, a cordon was breached by stumbling activists.

A Capitol guard, a lunchbucket type resentful of Saturday work, let alone to babysit $10 specialty salad types in front of an empty Capitol, let alone on a beautiful sunny day that could be his only chance this month to go fishing, away from his wife, saw an opportunity. "I'll be cutting bait within the hour," he thought as he sounded the alarm, and before anyone could ask for details, he turned the Capital riot hose on the crowd. In the interest of a speedy dispersal, with even fewer arrests and less processing time, he lobbed what tear gas he had.

But the crowd, high on vitamin D and somewhat refreshed by the cooling waters of the Riot Hose, did not disperse. They rioted. There were those who feared the violence and did not wish to lash out in anger, but what would their friends think? It wasn't like it was too hot to riot. They pushed toward the Capitol steps, trampling the guards on the way; the stage, with the doctor still on it, was carried like a raft, drifting up toward the dome. A fire-breathing puppet, its handler trampled, began spewing uncontrollably, within minutes the plaza's bushes were on fire, then the trees, and then, somehow, the Capitol itself.

The many people out on that sunny day could not help but notice that the center of their government was burning, and within the hour most of the capital was beset by looters. The town was mostly filled with fine, upstanding citizens not usually given to looting, but if anyone had asked, how could they ever admit to not getting free personal electronics? And besides, it was such a nice day to be outside, even with the thick black smoke.

News reports spread faster than fire, and the legislature packed up and headed for the next country over, just to be safe. The president headed two countries over just avoid hanging out at the same beach resorts as the legislators, who were a bit of a chore. By the late afternoon there was no government. In these situations, it would fall on the military to restore order, but most of the top brass had taken advantage of the sunny day to play a round of golf somewhere far from the reach of small-minded politicians.

The junior officer left behind to man the phones at the Department of the Army felt compelled to do something, but not quite at the risk of his own career. An authority figure would have to sign off on any possible firebombing of the looters, and so he sent his aides to find the one man who stood out on all the newsreels: a man on a platform, carried along by the crowd, with a look of vexation on his face. They found the doctor soon enough, cleaning his glasses atop the capital steps, bleeding from a number of scrapes and wishing it had rained that day.

"Should we end the fighting, sir?" barked an officer.

The doctor, who urgently wanted to get home and at least finish his filing so that the day was not a complete loss, could not imagine any reason why not. He did not care for the military, but the fat fingers of guilt pointed to supporting and respecting the troops, especially with so many cameras around. "I should think so!"

He had not realized it to be an order, but at 7:24 that evening, when a line of troops opened fire on a pack of looters, winging two and damaging a very nice stereo, Dr. Antonio Raigosa became the de facto leader of a revolutionary republic under martial law. It was an exciting addition to his resume, but also a position that would almost definitely cut into his research at the university. As the sun bid the sky farewell, a jeep scooped up the doctor and took him to the presidential mansion, where the top generals were now waiting in plaid pants with unsigned scorecards tucked in their back pockets.

The doctor did not want to lead a coup; he already had tenure at the university, and he greatly feared that reviewing the troops every other day would involve many trips outside of a safe, air-conditioned environment. And yet the generals beamed scorn straight through their mirrored sunglasses and into his face. "Opportunities like this are so rare," he thought. "And if anyone asked if I had really enjoyed the revolution …"

There were meetings, and introductions, and a careful listing of food allergies for the presidential chef. He agreed to keep the blue silk bunting that seemed to wrap the entire mansion in a bow (he preferred red, but what would people say if he switched to a color that did not match the flag?), issued some statements of reassurance and, anticipating a big day, shuffled off to an early bed.

But he could not sleep. True, it was a new bed, circular, 15 feet in diameter and with blue silk sheets, but it was quite comfortable. What kept him up was the sun still emblazoned on the back of his eyelids. As he flipped through the news channels in search of drowsiness, he saw the mobs, the looting and the rabblerousing. He saw the retrospectives of the last five revolutions and the footage of the firing squads for many of the past presidents. And in every clip, hanging in the sky as a relentless witness, was the sun.

It was the same sun that had driven him from his desk, brought the mobs to the streets and the generals to their golf course. Had there been a light drizzle he would be sleeping in his own bed right now. The doctor was a man of reason and hoped to accomplish much good. But reason told him that one sunny day was all it would take to have him blindfolded, smoking a cigarette and waiting for an ambitious army chief to give the order. And then the paperwork in his office would never be finished.

He paced the parapets, waiting for the sunrise, and could hardly contain his delight at the grey tropical fog of the morning. And so it was with a heavy heart, but also great relief, that he rushed to his presidential desk and issued his first executive order: all the meteorologists in the country were to be shot. Weathermen were imprisoned for good measure, and owning a weather vane was proclaimed a capital offense. There was consternation amongst the people, but no one wanted to organize in the rain, especially with leaders like Dr. Violeta Suarez thrown in prison (an order made with a somewhat lighter heart).

The forecast from the president's personal meteorologist (the only one left in the country, who was locked in the presidential basement) was for partial clouds throughout the week, and so the next day the air force began a program of thrice-daily cloud seedings. And the doctor's luck held: It was gray and soggy for one week, then two. When winds threatened to move the clouds out to sea, he had the Army stand on the mountains with harem fans and push them back to the center of the island. The secret police splashed from door to door, destroying all pairs of sunglasses and confiscating any sunscreen. Government engineers hurriedly assembled makeshift humidifiers on every corner of the capital to make any time spent outside as unpleasant as possible.

And all the while the doctor worked out the logistics needed to keep millions of people away from the sun. The important things – vast reimagining of social justice, etc. etc. -- could wait until this most important stability had been achieved. By the time the sun finally dared to appear, 20 days into his benevolent stewardship, he had settled on an elegant plan: a curfew. No man, woman or child could be on the street between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., upon pain of death.

It would be a difficult blow for the economy to absorb, the doctor knew, but compared with the economic disaster of a bullet-ridden president, it would be a minor inconvenience. The army could harvest the crops in the fields, and in time the people would learn to trade, and travel, and love not by the light of the sun, but in the cool, non-threatening evenings. "Cooler heads will prevail!" chuckled the doctor to his military chiefs, who were somewhat confused by the flurry of recent weeks but happy to at least feel useful.

It was a hazy week, in the mid-90s with unbearable humidity, and so in the first week of the curfew people had few complaints. There were rumblings about storming the Capitol, but no one had quite adjusted their sleep schedule just yet, nor did they want to miss their favorite television programs, which still hadn't switched over to daytime scheduling. Grousing was kept to a minimum.

It was on the 28th day, however, that the temperature dropped and the wind blew the humidity out to sea, right past the lines of Army rangers with their harem fans and the screaming engines of the air force jets. The people anxiously eyed their beach chairs, propped forlornly by their doors, and squinted wistfully at the perfect blue squares framed by their skylights. The breeze blew the smells of flowering plants through every street and field.

From his desk in the presidential mansion, the doctor, who was now for the first time applying his great mind to alleviating the squalor he was now actively responsible for, could see the sinister baby animal clouds advancing once again on his window, and swallowed hard.

He did not want to go outside; he had planned to end income inequality before lunch. He moved the mountains of paper on his desk to block the window panes. But again, the sounds of the sunny day broke through: birds chirping on the mansion grounds and army sergeants laying mulch. No sounds of angry mobs, no tinkles of broken glass, no screaming sirens. It seemed he had beaten the sun.

"I've been working so hard," said the doctor, now smiling. "And I'm no good to the country if I'm exhausted. Besides, with all the extra precautions, days like this are rarer than ever." He decided to go for a celebratory stroll.

He was two steps off the grounds of the presidential mansion when an army sniper, suffering from severe heatstroke after a week of working in the fields and fanning at the top of a mountain (and also distracted by daydreams of a pleasant day at the beach with his dog), shot him through the heart. When the news was announced over public radio by Acting President Suarez, the people took no time to mourn, or riot, or loot; instead they grabbed Frisbees and headed for the park for the first time in weeks. The looting could wait. What if it was never this sunny again?

Though hardly more than a footnote in the history of the republic, the doctor was buried under an unshaded spot on the Capitol plaza. There was a sundial at the foot of his grave, and a simple marker at the head: "There Will Always Be Another Sunny Day." And chiseled in much smaller letters toward the ground, visible only to those who did not mind brushing aside the mulch, were his final words, whispered to a mulch-covered lieutenant just before his death: "I really do prefer the indoors."

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