During the day, it’s so hot that even the rocks burn. Even in the shade, my skin boils. Looking through the windows, all I can see is the heat. Sitting by those windows, I can feel the heat seeping through to strip my skin of the little moisture it’s able to retain. I treasure the little water I’m allowed to use each day. I worship the plants that thrive six levels below the surface in the greenhouse we rely on to survive. I’ve never seen a bird. I’ve never stepped foot outside. All I’ve heard of the outside world is that fixing pipe H on the exterior East wall is the worst experience of our engineer’s life. Nobody else wants to talk about the outside. When they step back in, they ignore the questions I ask. Most of the time, it’s like they don’t even hear me talking. They’re always tired. They smell like dirt. They get extra water for the trouble they go through out there. The torture of the sun.
Someday, I want to go out there.
I want to feel that dry air, that dirt, the sun’s rays that burn everything they touch. Even if I can only get out there for a second, at least I’ll have felt it. Even if I only get to reach my arm through the gateway, at least a part of me will know what it feels like to be out there. A piece of me might be scarred by the sun. A patch of my skin could be a souvenir from the outside. It could be my own piece of the sun. I could look at it to remember the electric sting and the torrid air. The barren outside world would follow me on a reddened splotch of scar tissue.
But they’ll never let me out there.
I’ll never feel that air.
I’ll never be consecrated with a scar.
I’ll never be tortured by the sun.
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