There was uproar in Heaven. Every god was scrambling about in frantic haste, and all with a single purpose – to be the first to the Great Table. It was breakfast time, and there were fresh croissants, delicately steaming from the ovens powered by the souls of the damned at their labours in the Underworld. Finally, there was quiet as everyone settled expectantly around the Table.
“Where’s Dawn?” snapped the Mother Goddess, pointing to the empty seat of her brightest daughter.
“She had a heavy night,” someone said. “Midsummer’s Eve, and all that.”
“Do you mean to tell me she’s still in bed?”
There was an embarrassed silence.
“Although how,” Mother muttered to herself, “she could possibly sleep through all that noise is quite beyond me.”
Pausing only to glare at her host of children, many of whom were gazing wistfully at the rapidly cooling croissants piled in the centre of the table, she swept from the room. Dawn slept at the top of the palace so that she had easy access to the various mechanisms for keeping the sun in its course across sky. To save herself the effort of climbing the stairs, the Mother decided to levitate, and soon found herself floating purposefully along the corridor to Dawn’s room.
Entering briskly, a single glance was enough to confirm her worst fears, and sufficient to cause her to overlook the general aspect of a bombsite which the room presented to the divine eye – an aspect usually considered grounds for a week denied ambrosia, but provided with a turn or two supervising the souls in the Underworld. It was not a pleasant job as the wretched creatures would keep trying to get out of it, often with the feeblest of excuses. Mortals weren’t what they had been… in her day they took it like a man.
The Mother shook her wayward daughter. Then, as this produced no real effect, tipped a jug of nectar over the blissful dreamer. Dawn opened her eyes suddenly and let out a little shriek.
“Do you know what time it is?” Mother demanded.
Dawn thought a bit. “It’s still dark outside,” she said.
“Well of course it is, you silly muffin! The sun is still down, along with the Morning Star which Night brought in several hours ago. The mortals won’t like this, my girl, and to be honest, I’m not too impressed either.”
“Oh, stuff the mortals!” Dawn muttered rebelliously. “I’m sick of having to get up at the crack of Twilight to put that stupid sun in the sky. It’s been getting me down all week. Ever since it heard it was nearly Midsummer it’s been playing me up, straying about all over the sky and just refusing to settle down at night. I’m exhausted. I told it last night – it was the worst last night – that as a punishment I wasn’t going to take it out today, except for a quick run after lunch. After all, we can’t have the sun looking peaky.”
There was a very heavy silence following this outburst, during which Dawn plucked sullenly at her nectared nightdress and the Mother slowly turned purple, spluttered for a moment, then demanded that her daughter get up.
“We’ll talk about this later, my girl – after the sun is up in that sky!”
“No,” said Dawn, her voice muffled by her pillow. “I’m on strike.”
Mother sighed impatiently. “Well, give me the key and I’ll do it today.”
“It’s on the table.”
“”Where? Here?”
“Yes, by the moisturising cream. I’m beginning to peel with all these long days out with the sun, you know. It’s not good for me, Mother, I’ll end up looking like a lobster that’s just been boiled.”
“Never mind, dear.” Mother replied, hunting through the innumerable lotions, creams and oils on the table. “Night feels the same way every December with those long stints in the cold with the moon and all those stars.”
“At least he has Christmas around to cheer him up,” Dawn retorted. “Anyway, boys are different. He doesn’t have to take care of his complexion like I do.”
“No, but he gets awful chilblains,” Mother pointed out, trying to be reasonable. “Are you sure it’s here?”
“No,” said Dawn, infuriatingly. “Actually, come to think of it, it’s probably on the mantelpiece.”
Mother gave her the kind of look usually reserved by the injured party in a court case, who hears all their petty actions being aired in the open, much to the delight of the neighbours, who always thought as much but never liked to say. Unfortunately it was lost upon Dawn, who had wafted carelessly out of the room to start running a fragrant bath, taking several of the pots from the table with her.
Night appeared in the doorway.
“The moon’s getting restless,” he said darkly. “So’s her wretched sun. Where is she?”
His sister floated idly past him bearing various items of clothing and humming gently to herself.
“She keeps the key on a chain in the wardrobe,” he remarked, producing the item from its customary lodging as he did so. “Shall I let the sun up?”
Mother glared at her children impotently.
“Yes,” she snarled between clenched teeth.
“No good,” Night told her five minutes later. “The sun won’t budge. It’s sulking. Says she doesn’t love it any more, and it wants to die.”
Dawn wafted in again, “Good,” she said.
Mother put her head in her hands and began doing her breathing exercise. By now it was half past seven and still pitch black outside. A few priests were beginning to get upset and making burnt offerings rather indiscriminately. Heaven was filling with smoke and divine eyes were getting distinctly red-rimmed. Dawn’s eyes however were covered with slices of cucumber as she lay dreamily in her bath, inhaling perfumed steam. Outside, Mother hacked a little as she hammered on the door, and her vocal chords rasped quite noticeably as she ordered her daughter to let her in. Her daughter remained oblivious, with the latest ditty from the music of the spheres playing at full volume.
It was quite a long time before Dawn finally emerged from the bathroom, perfumed, oiled and creamed. Night had gone to bed, leaving Twilight in charge of the moon, which was becoming increasingly restive, and stirring up all the stars. The sun was moping faintly in a corner, and burning petals off daisies, chanting “She loves me, she loves me not,” then collapsing hopelessly at the end of each bloom to brood on happier days before starting all over again with another hapless flower. By now, the stars were beginning to get noisy and sounding rather like a stiff breeze among a thousand glassy chandeliers. The moon was backing them up with some of her special violins.
Dawn looked surprised, “What’s the matter with them?” she asked her wan Mother.
“They want to go out. It’s dark.” Twilight said. “They think they should be out there, galloping about and gladdening the hearts of mortals. They don’t believe it’s daytime. And the sun just sits in a corner saying things like ‘Temporal reality is a subjective experience conditioned emotively by the environment’ which isn’t much help because they think it means it agrees with them. And I’m not sure it doesn’t.”
Dawn reddened a little and examined her toes intently before asking “Do you mean it’s still not out?”
“Wouldn’t go without you,” Twilight explained. “Devotion,” he added gloomily.
Dawn flushed deeper and waggled her toe a bit. She chewed at her lip for a while, and fidgeted uncomfortably.
“I was thinking,” she muttered, continuing to examine her toes, “maybe the sun might want to apologise. Maybe it’s sorry. “
“Why don’t you go and see it?” the Mother suggested hopefully.
“Well, OK,” Dawn agreed. “I s’pose.”
The three deities strolled along to the sun’s room. It was surprisingly poorly lit, but the reason for this was clear immediately upon entering. The sun was reclining weakly on a couch, with a wintry expression of futility on his face. It saw Dawn almost at once, but merely groaned in a theatrical manner and sank further into its pillow of clouds. A couple of sunbeams drooped dispiritedly nearby.
Dawn, however, registered only the faint looking sun, and nothing else. She rushed to its side and began smoothing its forehead in a matronly sort of way and murmuring encouraging sorts of things to it. Very soon it brightened up, and by lunchtime it was high in the sky beaming like a cat with the cream.
“Well, Twilight dear,” the Mother said later. “I think that everything should be alright now, but I would be grateful if you’d keep an eye on things from now on.”
So that is why Twilight always follows Dawn and the sun, and why Dawn blushes so redly until the sun is properly in the sky. It is also why, especially at Midsummer, the sun is so bright and happy and stays out so late. Most interestingly, it is also why burnt offerings went out of fashion in Heaven soon after the day the sun didn’t shine.
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