Heliophobia.

I’ve never been one to ever converse with my neighbors, ever. But that’s only because most of them are losers, either being white trash wangsters (white gangsters) who rap about my boots as I walk to wash laundry or old people with no voice boxes that blast their television at wee hours of the night. But things change. My old upstairs neighbors became senile and were moved into an old folks home and were replaced by a very mysterious character.


For the first day I watched intently trying to figure out who was about to be the moving figure above me that I would never choose in my right mind to talk to. Call me an unsocial loner if you must- I suppose that’s what I am. I watched as people carried the boxes up the stairs but not ever seeing a face clearly. I knew it was going to be a female because the name on the mailbox was a Ms. Daisy Holt.

Then I saw a pair of feminine legs carrying quite a large box. Then a short moment later I realized she was not carrying the box at all, in fact, the only thing in the box was this Ms. Daisy Holt.

It pains me to say this, but I had to resort to leaving my apartment to understand the oddity, looking through my blinds just wasn’t cutting it.

“Excuse me?” I asked one of the men carrying a box, “Who is moving in here? Are they here?” I was sure they were there, and underneath the box, but I just couldn’t fathom the words.

The man, as I predicted, pointed to the box with legs. I walk over to it/her, “You need help with the box?” I joked.

The box turns and a slit with a pair of sunglasses responds to me, “Oh no, I’m actually in here,” she said awkwardly not understanding my joke, “This isn’t a box to help with.”

I didn’t know what to say, “Oh… ha. Well I’m Sarah your downstairs neighbor.”

“Daisy.”

“Yeah I know. So… Why the box outfit?”

She answered quickly without any hesitation; almost as if she was declining my credit card, “Heliophobia,” She then walked up the stairs with outrageous grace for anyone, especially someone wearing a box.

I googled it of course, “the fear of the sun,” was the answer. My only thought was, “She must be albino.”

She’s lived above me for a month now and I have never seen her leave her apartment. She has black curtains over her windows. She has people deliver everything she needs to survive.

I’ve never been so intrigued by a human being before (that includes the hot bodied soccer player that lived next door from me for a month, not that I talked to him). I have even resorted to facebook stalking. Unfortunately Ms. Daisy Holt is too cool to have a social network account. But really, she never leaves her apartment, how can she not have one?

Today, after watching old 1950’s television shows I’ve come up with a bullet proof plan. A “welcome to the apartments” batch of cookies. They aren’t homemade but it’s not like I’m going to spend five hours making cookies, that’s ridiculous. She’s probably afraid of chocolate or something.

I gingerly walk up to her door and knock. A note is soon shoved between the black curtains that cover the window on the door, it reads: I only accept visits after dark- sunset is at 7:11 tonight, come back then.

-Daisy

I walk back down to my apartment befuddled, “She must be a vampire.” I think about wearing garlic upon my second visit but if she isn’t a vampire then I’ll look like a total idiot.

I wait.

I go back around eight, just to make sure no sun was lingering. I knock once again, this time with an answer. I am taken aback by her normal appearance. I suppose I imagined her to be an older woman with pasty white skin and red albino eyes. Daisy is a fresh young lady with olive skin and golden eyes. She doesn’t appear to be either an albino or a vampire.

“Daisy?” I ask to be sure that the person in front of me was in fact the lady in the box.

“Yes. Come in,” She opens the door wide, “Are those for me?” She takes the cookies (obviously not afraid of chocolate) as I am frozen in the sight of her incredible living room. The walls are painted with clouds, and even… a sun.

“Wow,” is all I can muster and then I see what occupies the room. Cages full of spiders, snakes, rats, and other such vermin. I back away as far as humanly possible without becoming one with the wall. Instantly I feel the creatures crawling all over my body, laying eggs in my brain, infecting me with the plague, filling my body with poisonous venom. This woman who is afraid of the very thing that sustains life on this planet plays house with the horrible.

“Do you like my collection?”

I look at her wide eyed (so wide eyed I am sure my eyes have fallen from my skull), “Uh, NO! Why in the world do you have these?”

She shrugs,” I just like them. Are you frightened?”

I am seeing my all my fears displayed out in front of me, let’s see her reaction if I put her out in an open field without a box, “Yes! You are afraid of the sun but just fine and dandy with housing these disgusting… things?” I shiver.

“The sun is made from molten energy. Solar flares are happening all over the place. Hello, skin cancer. UV rays blinding people,” The way she talks is almost convincing me that fearing the sun is rational, “They aren’t disgusting, just misunderstood. If they harm you it’s just because they are defending themselves.”

I stand, being put in my place by a girl who is afraid of the sun. The most seemingly irrational human being seems to have everything in order in that odd brain of hers. I can stand outside without a box protecting me and yet, I end up being the ridiculous sounding one. How ironic.

I leave her apartment realizing one thing; Daisy Holt is a crazy person. Me ridiculous? Irrational? There’s no way. Or is there?