Sun creatures

Let our imagination run wild. No one in his right mind would ever think there are such things as sun creatures —- creatures from the sun living in perfect fusion-energy harmony. Well, here is one such sci-fi story.

Harvard Professor: (To his Cosmology 101 class): That’s what I mean by attitude. You convince yourself that there is life only if there is oxygen and if temperatures are close to what we humans can tolerate. Attitude inhibits your way of thinking.

Student: Sir, you mean to say, we can have creatures who can exist on the surface of the sun?

Harvard Professor: Bull’s eye. Sun creatures, balls of pure energy, are possible.

Now our story.

Once upon a time, there was a five-year-old boy named Ramon, who was obsessed with the sun. His older brother Raffy taught him how to gaze at the sun during a total eclipse. Raffy placed a piece of glass on top of a candle flame until it was as black as the night. Then, they used it as a filter to gaze at the glaring sun, which appeared like a circle of white light against the black. Even when the eclipse was gone, Ramon kept the glass and used it often to gaze at the sun.

Raffy: You are so obsessed with the sun. You watch it almost every day. Perhaps, the Egyptian sun worshippers are our ancient ancestors from thousands of years ago. They call their sun god Ra.

Ramon: Just like RA-mon and RA-ffy, haha. Yes, I believe we are.

One day, while Ramon was watching the sun, a sudden ball of light, about three inches in diameter, as bright as the sun, appeared hovering above him. Using his glass filter, he watched the ball of light darting here and there. He whispered, “It’s alive.” He was not afraid. In fact, he had an intense attraction for the light sphere. He waved at the light, and it flew away suddenly. But in three minutes, it was back with two other companions.

Ramon: (waving frantically and screaming). Hey, hey there, sun creatures. I’m a friend.

The three light spheres floated around for another 5 minutes, as if acknowledging his screams, and were gone instantly. He never told Raffy about it, fearing he would think he was crazy.

Ramon: Raffy, how come the sun has so much energy? How does it produce such intense energy from millions of kilometers away and cause it to burn our skin and create violent storms?

Raffy: It is called fusion energy. When parts of an atom fuse or combine with other atoms, it produces intense energy. This happens in an extremely hot environment like the sun. Scientists have tried to produce fusion energy with partial success. The problem is attaining the heat of the sun which is needed to generate fusion energy.

Every day, Ramon waited for the sun creatures to return. They never came back. Then, just as he was about to give up, they appeared again, this time 23 of them. Foreseeing the situation, Ramon improvised a special sunglasses with the lenses blackened by candle light, so he could see all 23 sun creatures all at once.

After 20 minutes, they were all gone but came back in five minutes. Ramon deduced that they went back to the sun at the speed of light to replenish their fusion energy before coming back to Earth.

After 70 years of dialogue with sun creatures, Ramon finally decided to tell Raffy about it, who went into a rage because brother Ramon denied him the chance of meeting the sun creatures earlier. And so, in his old age, Raffy finally met the sun creatures and was in tears.

Ramon: I’m sorry, brother.

Raffy: It doesn’t matter. All is well.

And so the two Ra’s with candle-flame-blackened sunglasses met the largest congregation of sun creatures ever, 33 strong. The sun creatures understood somehow that there could not be many of them, otherwise the brothers Ra would be burned to a crisp.