The Alien Memory of Warmth

I dreamt of the Sun again last night. The acceleration of the rockets presses me into my seat, and I can't move. The unbearable noise of liftoff is absent in my dream. As we climb above the eternal sphere of cloud, dust, exhaust, and smoke, the tiny windows of the shuttle become almost unbearably bright. Until this moment, I've only seen Sunlight as it looks filtered, diffused, and refracted through miles of filthy air. I watch a pure, warm circle crawl across my hand. The light, obstructed only by the rare upper atmosphere and a couple inches of glass, burns almost too hot on my hand. I've never felt the sun before.

We use sun lamps to keep our skin from turning pale an translucent in the darkness, and that's how I'd always assumed the Sun of ancient clear skies must have felt. Now I hate the sterile bluish light of the lamps -- the weak light that always fails to impart any meaningful warmth. My skin dutifully produces melanin and vitamin D, yet remains cold.

As we left our home forever, I stared at the intense dot diminish on the viewscreens and knew that I would never feel that warmth again. I could only watch its pale reproduction on the monitors as it faded into the starfield behind us, my face illuminated by the screens' faint glow, feeling nothing.

It's been 3 years since I've seen the Sun, and the alien memory of its warmth haunts me still. I can no longer remember what jolly insanity convinced me to spend 10 years in this windowless can. Sure, life on Earth couldn't offer much more than hunger, illness, and destitution. And maybe I'd seen more of the sun in my climb into space than most remaining inhabitants of the planet will likely see in their lifetimes. But these motivations seem insignificant in the freezing darkness of space.