When asked where he came from he only spoke of heat — a blunt weather system of pure tropical sauna. A state of degrees where rock melted and the Earth gave off a definite sweat. The heat was the land, his home, and kin. He knew the West had their god as did the East, North, and South. All gods took various yet similar forms, but his, the Sun, was the only tangible Supreme Being. The Sun gave no rules or distinct lessons for mankind to abide by but put forth obstacles to make one stronger and offered gifts that kept life possible.

‘Does your God protect you?’ They would ask.

‘Only if I took what it offered,’ he replied.

‘Meaning?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘the Sun provides rain, light, warmth, dampness, and fire which makes living possible but they can also cause harm. There are places to go when each of these infringes on my safety.’

‘But at the center of its being is the fact that the Sun is mindless to the needs of man — our dreams and our prayers. It only burns and kills. Our God does not.’

‘The Sun does not judge. It exists of its own accord, and we live with it inside of the cosmos. Those that do not understand, or attempt to fight the elements of the Sun, will always lose. Who loses against your God?’

‘No one. All win under the love of our Western Lord.’

‘Except the women who want to have control over their own bodies, the children who do-not wish to fight the wars of their elders, and the men who want to exist inside of their own minds. The Sun does not care. All live and all die according to the lives they live. No amount of words, protestations, or tears can change that.’

As they would commune in their city-bound churches to pray and worship, he would return to his own — the forest and the desert where the water flowed and dried up all the same, where vegetation flourished and disappeared in drought. The temperature increased in the morning and by afternoon all creatures stood still to preserve energy and keep cool. Those that tried to go against the natural order and hunt at high sun would often dehydrate or fall sick from heat stroke. The man understood and lathered in cold mud and slept beneath the heavy branches of the trees.

Those in the city laughed and huddled in manufactured buildings of concrete and steel, conditioned air blowing throughout.