Sundripped and Drenched - FIONA BURTON

names, Cathy and Matt. I think they liked me. I hope my t-shirt didn’t look too shabby.

-Chris Noland

Sundipped and Drenched

I opened a fortune cookie last week Well actually I opened three fortune cookies last week But I accidentally put two fortunes in my sweatshirt pocket and they got torn To pieces by the washing machine I remembered to take the last fortune out Fortunately It tells me that a long awaited event will arrive soon I wonder if it will arrive today But no, I don’t think it will Isn’t it…. Weird how the sun is always above us? That even when it’s cloudy it’s still up there somewhere? And I know this isn’t possible… But… Imagine if someone lives up on the sun with a telescope And they spy on us Opening fortune cookies

The sun in and of itself is a horror A massive Spinning Orb Of heat It’s… terrifying

But we would die without it So there’s that

I think it’s romanticized actually But my memory of it has always been a marvelous wonder When it hits the snow in Chicago

And the smell of the car’s heating system The feel of the warm leather seats And 2013 Taylor Swift playing on the radio And… Do you remember... Oh, nevermind.

Well The last sliver of sun just sank below the horizon of November trees And I’ve always liked the name ARIA Apparently Capricorns don’t believe in astrology And I’ve decided that all the weird people in the world Have picked grass and stared at the sky during sports practice At least once in their life

I was picking grass and staring at the sky with a girl named Krista once We were at lacrosse practice And it was October The sun hit the top of the church just right And I thought I was in Boston in the 1800s or something I wanted to go home and make soup from scratch So I did And it tasted disgusting And OH WELL

When both the sun and moon are up Well That’s certainly something It happened last Thursday When there was an eclipse I missed the eclipse part though (too much rain) There was just a FULL moon On one side of me And on the other side A FULL sun If you can call it that But you know what I mean

And if you stood at just the right spot on the sidewalk No, not there… there You could see it all

This other time I was on a hill With my cousin

It’s called half mile hill And it’s in Massachusetts You can google it I don’t know if it’ll come up But We climbed it and when we got to the top I expected to just see the buildings of my grandparents’ retirement community But There was a lake And I had totally forgotten there was a lake I had been to that lake back in 2014 But That was a long time ago I had forgotten it was there But The sun hit it And I kind of wanted to stay there forever Because it was all perfect But my cousin had to get on a flight to Seattle in 3 hours so we left That particular era of our lives.

What else?

Oh.

I just saw the sunset the other day. From a dock in Florida I saw it twice actually The first time I was standing under the roof of a deserted citrus shack In front of a swaying bell with my cousin The second time I was alone There’s a sign on the deserted citrus shack that tells you to ring the bell to make your wish come true And to ward off evil spirits I closed my eyes and wished for my cousin to never become as annoying As her sisters Blinked 8 times Rang the bell 7 times (the second part of my lucky number - 27) Then we both lay on the dock with our heads over the edge Looking for dead priests

24 hours later I came back Alone I wanted to watch the sunset dramatically In a much more civilized manner

But when I sat down The trees were threaded across my view Immersed in an act of obstruction

I was too lazy to move So I stayed And watched the trees

I read a scene in a book once Where a prince was sitting on a dock at sunset with a girl Who could control the sun Or maybe the girl who could control the sun Was sitting on a dock with a prince Their eyes were described as “flecks of amber” So now I associate flecks of amber with the sunset Sunny orbs. Orbs that hold so much meaning The hope The aspirations Of the future The naïveté That everything will remain the same That you will be the only one to change

Never in the history of the earth has that happened.

I opened a fortune cookie last week Well actually I opened three fortune cookies last week But I accidentally put two fortunes in my sweatshirt pocket and they got torn To pieces by the washing machine I remembered to take the last fortune out Fortunately It tells me that a long awaited event will arrive soon And I’m so confused because I don’t know what I’m waiting for And how soon is soon? Eventually would probably be a better word A long awaited event will happen eventually Then it can never be wrong

-Fiona Burton