Eternal Heat

“It is always sunrise somewhere…” But what happens when the earth suddenly stops rotating? Eternal sunrise, eternal heat! Temps are rising; crops are failing. Mankind is doomed unless they band together physically, emotionally, and sexually! Radio talk show host Jillian Graves takes the lead and forms a delightfully passionate commune where steamy no-holds-barred groupsex is the perfect solution!

~~~~~ PG Excerpt ~~~~~

“No, Dad. The sun, it’s all wrong.” She swallows, trying gallantly not to panic.

“What do you mean the sun is all wrong?” Knowing of his daughter’s innate sense of nature, he gives credence to her alarm and to her words without question.

“It’s pushing one o’clock but the shadows on my patio look like eleven in the morning. And I’m just now waking up. I always wake at eleven, you know this.”

“You mean the shadows on that great big, honking porch?” He attempts levity.

“Yes, that great big honking porch you like so well,” she catches her breath and runs her fingers through her long, blonde hair similar to a lion’s mane. “Daddy, is anything strange happening on the ranch?”

Silence, then the man of forty-eight years clears his throat, “A-hmm. Now that you mention it, the horses are out of sorts today. Every last one of them, even Blaze the mule, came in from the fields and are in their stalls. That, and the dog’s kind of extra clingy today, but Bascom is always under foot.”

From his venue on the tractor, which he had turned off when his phone vibrated, he turns sideways in his seat to take a look back in the direction of the barn although it’s out of sight, adding, “The horses weren’t asleep the last time I checked on ‘em. Just acting odd is all.”

She had been listening attentively, but now redirects the discussion, “Daddy, I know, go look at the sundial I gave you last Father’s Day, the one outside Mamma’s garden. And say hello from me to Bascom.”

Without objection, he trots over to his ATV parked nearby, scrubs the ears of the maple syrup colored Labrador Retriever nearly asleep in the passenger seat and hollers, “Jillian says hello, boy. Hold on.”

He turns the key that was left, as always, in the ignition, guns a little gas through the motor then wheels toward the main house. The noted sundial is in the back yard, near the entrance to Katy’s garden. Inside a minute, he is on the ground and walks up to the seven-foot-high Gothic sculpture. Drawing near, but mindful to not let his shadow fall on the ground level dial, he observes where the shadow from the high, vertical needle strikes the scale.

XI. The sun is still at eleven am.

Waves of practical explanations and possible courses of action sweep over him like a zephyr.

“You there, Pumpkin?”

“Yes, Daddy. What does it say?” she exclaims, a victim of building anxiety over the past minute.

“It says eleven o’clock! How is this possible? It’s almost one, like you said.” He checks his watch. Ideas begin to race through his mind and he doubts his own spoken words.

Eventually, Jillian breaks the flustered quiet by speaking in vacant thoughts, “I best be getting on in to work. There’ll be lots to do.”

“Do us both a favor, Jillian,” he rarely uses her given name. “Don’t let things get too crazy in San Francisco before you hightail it back home. I feel like things are going to get bad, real bad, with people panicking and all. You always have a place here at home. We’ll take good care of each other.”