Great question. You see, people have a day shift and a night shift. The sun and moon have been here long before that, of course. But, everyone needs a schedule.

So, whether or not you believe in the divine, how else would animals get sleep? Without night, you can’t have stars appear. Then you wouldn’t have people who study them.

Or astrologists. And the sea needs a moon to pull the tides. Like the plants need sunlight to grow. Not that earth had any plans for humans, but nonetheless, life would cease to exist without a sun.

Everybody else has a Sun and moon, anyway. Sure, this one will eventually kill us all in the end, but that’s not our concerns. Maybe someone once decided, one day, that Earth should be a planet for life.

Just took a couple maybe decades to get there. Life. That fish that walked on land. Mammals, dinosaurs. Birds. It’s a good thing the moon and the sun has been here long before they arrived.

Oh, and you wouldn’t have a breakfast, or dinner without a sun and a moon. Well, you wouldn’t have life without either of those things, to be fair.

You have them for order. Planets are celestial beings and they don’t have a cerebral cortex to form opinions. Which is great, considering humans trash earth all the time.

The real reason why they change every day, is because they have a complicated relationship with humans. They might not like us. But that doesn’t mean everything else has to suffer, right?

Imagine telling that to birds. Well, you see, humans are polluting and killing the life around you. Which has nothing to do with you, but because you’re on the same planet, I just can’t help myself.

Especially on hot days, the sun is judging you. All of us, really. Oh, and a bit of climate change, too. But the sun has always been judgemental, since day one. But the moon doesn’t get a ‘day’, so I guess that’s why it’s colder.

It’s also why you get your skin burnt from the sun, too. The moon is usually just a bystander. Whatever happens during the night, isn’t certainly any of its business. You have a night shift? Oh, well. Not its problem.

Got eaten by a coyote? Sorry, but it’s dark out to see, anyway. So if it happened, it probably didn’t to everyone else. It’s free territory, basically.

Somehow, nighttime and daytime just worked out. You don’t have night first thing when you wake up. Natural order of things. I guess that’s why people contribute concepts like night and day to a divine being.

That someone, or something, out there made this for a reason. People want purpose. Or maybe hope. One of the two. You can likely believe it’s all down to science.

Maybe the moon is a person. Maybe the sun is, too. Things you can personify. Like those little suns on kids drawings with a smiley face on them. Certainly, you don’t tell a kid that the sun is, physically, incapable of feeling anything.

Because frankly it’s boring, the way things already are. That’s why people have philosophers. No, there’s probably not any good reason as to why the curtains were blue, but I digress.

The sun, like anything else, is whatever you make it up to be. They write poems about it. Draw things about it. Techinally, everything I said to you before, is all made up. But, you have to admit, it’s a lot more boring if I just told you the way it is, isn’t it?

Yes, it’s factual that the sun isn’t actually judging you, morally speaking. But, when you’ve got nothing but time on your hands, you can do what I just did.

Via, like everyone else, making shit up. For fun, of course. The sun can’t care for you, and it definitely can’t change climate change for you, either, just because it’s affecting you. JAnd you, peroanally, just don’t like how it feels.

Neither is the Sun an omniscient being like god. Because there isn’t any someone out there, punishing you with climate change, because you surely assume your actions led up to it. Because, obviously, that’s how it works.

The sun and moon are, luckily, devoid of consciousness. Consider it a gift. What would they do, anyway? They’re impossible to stop it, much like God. It’s always up to the people, whether they like it or not, to stop man made problems, in this rock of mass and land inside space.

You just have to, somehow, surive around whatever circumstances made around you. Whether you want to get up for the day or not, it is there. Much like the night, you have to sleep, have to work, as that is the necessary needs for anything.

Question it, or don’t. It’s up to you. Enjoy the sunsets and sunrises. Or, when the moon is peeking above the clouds, and you can’t help but note how beautiful it is. Maybe, in moments like those, you wish they could feel things.

But nature, like any celestial, doesn’t have the ability to know, or care what you think of it. That’s the repetitive thing about nature. Same goes with the plants, and animals walking among earth. Whether you’re the early bird, or the late night owl. It won’t cater to you, you just have to adapt around it.

Have to make breakfast, treat yourself well, repeat until the day you die. Unless, that is, you go quietly into the night. Then again, you don’t exactly get to chose your circumstances.

Just like how the animals do. When they chirp in the morning, or how you can see fireflies at night. It’s their job to find every essential moment useful. It’s survival. You understand it, too.

When you have to prepare for work, even if the nature around you, wouldn’t understand a thing about a capital system. At least, they understand the simpler things. Eat, sleep, drink.

Oh, and try not to get eaten by anything dangerous, would you? At least, their predators can’t invent danger and torture like we do. Well, maybe the killer whales and dolphins would like to borrow a page from our book.

And many animals, who do as much disgusting things as we do. Take the naked rat. Yes, we recoil when he discover their ‘crimes’ (because what is a judicial system to a simple creature?) but, like the human, we don’t do much about it.

If it happens, it happens. Except, that carnivores don’t, likely are incapable, of inventing wars like we do. They don’t understand the horror when you realize you don’t have enough, or how will you afford enough to keep you alive? It’s a balance, I suppose.

You either wish to be an animal, set to its primal needs, or a human. And if you want to be a human, you want to be a human with the best quality of life.

Rich. Powerful. Wealthy. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to taking advantage of the consciousness you’re born with. If you’re all above the others, despite its unfairness, you get a chance to experience life freely. The way it should be.

And if you’re not that, then I’d recommend you wish yourself to be a domesticated pet in the next life. Of course, you’d have to be lucky. Love and loyalty isn’t easily accessible. Sure, as a human, you get to live longer than your domestic pet would.

It’s the closest you’ll ever get to feeling immortal. For when your pet, or a loved one dies, and you continue to live without them, that is immortality. You either watch them age, and forever stay young, or age with them. Of course, you don’t get the luxury to pass on with them.

Not everybody does, anyway. There isn’t an option where you get everything you want. Maybe, you’d be an animal, but your life would be thrusted into the palm of a stranger. You don’t whether or if they’ll love you, much like when you are first born.

You are, sadly, meant to depend on them for food, water, and maybe something unconditional. Or, perhaps you’ll carry that with you, and provide a whole new generation who is unloved, and unwanted. That’s your choice.

The earth, as always, will continue to exist and possibly thrive, despite the horrors you have witnessed. They’re man made. Earth cannot be culpable for man. Much like the celestial beings looming over earth, neither are they.

And they never will be. If the sun is a little hotter than you remember, or if the nights seem impossibly colder, remember: those are man made reasons. Every hot summer you have, or blizzard, or hurricane and fire, are only a result of mankind.

Perhaps, they wouldn’t have gotten to the extent as they have now, but like the sun and moon, how can you be responsible for corporate greed? If you wanted to see the Sun as a ruler, then it will punish everyone. Regardless if they are in a lower position as you, or maybe higher.

It cannot divide itself to pin down a hell fire. So, the animals, and including myself, have no choice but to take it. We can’t move away from this rock. And neither can the animals, as it is their home, just like it is for us.

That’s the unfortunate thing about it, isn’t it? That you can watch from a screen, as polar bears are struggling to find a meal for the next generation. Perhaps, in that moment, you can call it a mutual understanding. Because they are too many mouths to feed, but so little food you can put on the table.

And, as it is, just like you; they have no choice but to survive the circumstances placed upon them. They can’t do anything about it, and maybe that feeling you can understand just as deeply as they do. It’s unfortunate, isn’t it? Because you can understand, that the same polar bear on your screen, would attack you and rip you into pretty red ribbons.

But, you can’t exactly blame them now, can you? You are something they have never seen in their life, and of course, just like you; they can tear something into shreds, without question. Except that there is no after. They either eat you, or leave you as a carcass for the scavengers.

What a human does with the deceased, can’t even be as nearly as close to that. No one can deface the dead like a human would. Maybe, a dolphin might understand that prospect, because maybe the more closer you are to ‘intelligent’ - you are suspectible to great evil.

But when it circles back to the question, you’d appreciate the simplicity in an animal’s nature, wouldn’t you? Yes, it would be terrifying, none the less. Humans are unpredictable creatures. Animals, however, are not. They don’t have languages like we do, to abuse. To objectify, dename, dehumanize.

That’s what makes us ‘unique’, doesn’t it? Animals can be cruel, yes. But not like a human. Not truly, anyway. And it doesn’t seem to matter what atrocities are committed on this floating rock, the sun and moon can’t exactly intervene. Why would you make them conscious of it?

They are only spectators. Why would you subject them to that? Humans have already been bystanders to it, as it stands. We’ve already seen enough. More than any celestial being would, who has been here, long before we have. Long before we were a concept, and all they can do is continue as normal.

Whether great extinct happen, or world wars, there is nothing else for them to do. Other than continue as usual. Maybe something sad and terrible has happened, but why would they stop them? Whether you fill the world as you know it with hate or not.

Whether you die hated or loved. That is your choice, ultimately, you know.

The sun and moon where very different in many ways, but they had one thing I common— their love for planet Earth. The sun, who was always cheerful and bubbly, loved to shine her rays of joy on the citizens who occupied the planet. The moon, who was constantly moody and dark, loved to shine his dim yet beautiful light on the humans too. One day, both the sun and moon felt like paying Earth a visit, when they reached there, though, they argued on who got to shine their light over Earth first. Because the moon in the sun where both there, the moon cause waves to rise hundred feet high and crash into the nearby cities. The sun caused crops to wither and heat waves to pass through. Earth was beeing destroyed, yet—though their constant bickering— the sun and moon stayed oblivious to this fact. This went on for hours before one human, a small girl in fact, climbed to the tippy-top of the highest tree and demanded the sun and moon’s attention. She claimed she had a solution to their problem, the sun should watch over Earth during the bright day and the moon, should watch over the Earth during the dark nights. The sun and moon looked around at all the chaos their had caused and agreed to the young girls terms. Now, every day the sun appears in the sky and every night the moon appears.

Some say the sun is the ruler of sky’s. Burning and shinning and castings it’s light.

Some say the moon is the keeper of dawn, Fighting the light until it’s shunned and gone.

I say the moon and sun share earth and space, Each with their own role, and important place.

Some say the moon is nothing without sun. I say the sun shines for the moon above.

“Sun goes down, moon goes up” he said, a smile of pure joy crossing his face.

“Your an idiot” 

The curly-haired boy presses his face against the cold glass of the window and stares outside. "Elio," he begins, "where does the sun go when it's nighttime?"

Elio stands up and walks over to his brother, looking into his hopeful eyes and smiling. "It goes to sleep."

"But what about the moon?" The boy asks.

"The moon also goes to sleep, but only when the sun is awake. They watch over each other that way, keeping each other safe." Elio explains. "Now, it's time to sleep, Julius."

Julius sighs and hops down from the chair he used to look out the window, then lies down on the mattress in the corner of the room. "Is that why you stay awake while I'm sleeping?"

Elio glances at him. "Stay awake? What do you mean?"

"That's why you stay up all night, right? To protect me?" Julius clarifies.

Elio looks out the window, observing the world his brother doesn't see, the world he strives to shield him from. He closes the blinds and takes a deep breath. "Yes," he replies. "Yes, that's why."

Julius smiles and closes his eyes. "I'll stay awake too. I'll protect you, Elio."

"I'm certain you will, Julius." Elio grabs a gun from the drawer and positions himself by the door. "But for now, let me protect you."

Moon and Sun are friends. They always have been; they’ve been together since the beginning of the earth, and they used to hope to be like that until the end. Sun still does. Moon, on the other hand, has different plans.

Moon and Sun used to have another friend named Earth. They loved Earth dearly, and they were a trio. Sun had always been optimistic, kind and happy. Earth was creative and unique, always trying to come up with new things. Finally, there’s Moon. Moon never felt like she was enough for Sun and Earth. She felt like a burden, but stuck around anyway.

One day, Earth had come up with a new invention: the human. He based the human off of the sun: smart, kind, and happy. the human was molded from various parts of the Earth and atmosphere, making him unlike anything they had ever seen. The human was big like the sun too, strong and muscular. The human was supposed to entertain Sun, Moon and Earth. He was supposed to give them something to talk about.

The days dragged on, and the human was a huge hit! He would explore Earth’s surface, and use Earth’s materials in ways they never thought to use them for. They adored the Human. However, Earth wanted more.

Earth was curious as to what the Human would do if it had a team, so he made another human. This one was different from the first. She was modeled more after the moon this time. Earth took inspiration from Moon’s craters, and he gave the new human curves, unlike the other one.

The two humans were skeptical of each other at first, but soon, they became a team, just like Earth had wanted. Moon, Sun and Earth watched the humans as they explored and learned more things about the Earth. What they did not expect was for the humans to look inside themselves and learn about their abilities.

Eventually, the humans learned how to reproduce. It was a beautiful sight for Sun, Moon and Earth, and they loved watching more life being brought into the Universe. So, they let it continue. This also inspired Earth to make more humans with different materials so they would look different, and so he did.

The Earth was content with how the humans lived. They made his friends happy, and he adored them himself. However, over time, the humans began to take so much from Earth that he began to feel weak. Moon and Sun worried for the Earth, but they didn’t know what to do. They could only watch as their friend grew more and more sick.

Moon felt useless. She wanted to do something, no, she had to do something to help Earth. So, she moved in a little closer to Earth so that the humans would notice her. She felt stupid at first, because the humans didn’t seem to care. But one day, they talked about her.

Earth shakily reported to Sun and Moon that the humans wanted to explore Moon. Moon felt elated! Her plan worked! However, her friends did not share her excitement. They were filled with fear. Earth didn’t want Moon to feel the way he did, and Sun was scared that because of how much smaller Moon was than the Earth that the Moon would die. This did not weigh too heavily on Moon’s mind.

Eventually, the humans made their way to Moon. They dug a flag into her, and walked around on her surface. More and more humans poured onto her, and started to talk about sending humans to live there. Moon didn’t mind, but Sun was outraged.

Sun didn’t want to watch his friends get sick, so he started inching closer to the Earth too, hoping to attract humans. Moon did not want Sun to fall into the same trap. If one of the three could be healthy, she hoped, it would be enough. So she chased him away from Earth.

Sun, being smart, circled around Earth, still getting closer. So Moon kept chasing, slowing him down. Their chase still goes on to this day. It is known as the day and night cycle.

“Yo sis!”, called Apollo ,”What’s up lil sis!”

“Holy Hades, Apollo!”, exclaimed Artemis in shock ,”Do you seriously have to do this every time we switch places every night and day”.

“Yeah”, Apollo replied with a shrug ,”Okay, so, I’ve got a concert at Olympus so, I need to go, like, right now, okay? Okay”. As Apollo tried to leave, Artemis grabbed his arm.

“Hold up sun boy”, said Artemis ,”You’ve got another hour of sunlight left”. Apollo gave his sister a sad expression.

“But sissssss”, whined Apollo ,”What about the concert?”

“Oh believe me, the muses will do great without you”, Artemis said ,”And remember the last time you stopped your shift early?” Apollo laughed at the memory.

“Oh yeah”, Apollo said with a smile ,”The mortals thought that the world was ending and Dad and Uncle Hades where livid. Great times!”

“Yes, so that’s why you need to finish your shift”, explained Artemis.

“Okay”, Apollo replied sadly.

“Okay”, Artemis repeated.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Sun.”

“Night shift go alright?”

“Eh, yeah. ‘Bout as alright as it’s been for the past four and a half billion years.”

“Oh, man, I hear that. The tides doin’ OK?”

“Oh, y’know… it comes and goes.”

“Sure, sure… you look glowing, by the way.”

“Aw, shucks, only ‘cause I’m next to you.”

“Stoooop, you’re such a charmer. Hey, you comin’ in later today? Could use some company.”

“Nah, I’m takin’ the day off. Need to get my dark side checked.”

“Ah, right, I forgot. You doin’ alright?”

“Well, y’know… it’s a bit tough not being able to see back there, but I’ll figure something out.”

“Sure, sure. Well, enjoy your day off. See you tonight!”

“See ya. Oh, Sun?”

“Yeah?”

“Good morning.”

“…good morning, Moon.”

When I was younger, I remember I used sneak out in the middle of night to go to my brothers room. Those were the eternal days, when days and nights used to last epochs. My brother, Aditya was the most beautiful being ever created. Even as a child he was regal, golden. His light shone bright wherever he went. We were inseparable. As the universe was continued to be created and more creatures came into being, I realized that I was different from my brother. Where he would shine golden and attract everything with his warmth, they would flee from me. My mother once tried to tell me that what wasn’t understood was usually feared. That was when I realized I was the darkness. When I came out people ran back into their homes. Unless Aditya was there. When he was around, I didn’t seem so scary, in fact, they seemed more curious about me. In his way, my brother was protecting me. A defense against the harshness of the world.

It was with him that I was my true self, the darkness in the night, the guide to the stars, the light in the dark. No matter what happened I would always return to the safety of his arms. Until I couldn’t. Father began to send Aditya away for many hours at a time . He wanted me to be strong and independent and find my own place in the world. But my place wasn’t outside of my brother’s love. And I never stopped needing him…

She was the sun, burning with love, compassion, and energy.

I was the moon, cold, sorrow, and lazy.

The people of Earth adored her dearly; she made their plants grow and their happiness stronger. The people drew her in a heavenly way. She was their queen.

The people didn’t appreciate me as much; I was only lighting up the night sky a little bit after all.

The sun was so regal and beloved, that even when she became so hot, the people of Earth still worshiped her.

I love her dearly, and she loves me.

When she gets tired I take her place and watch over her people.

She shines on me then to provide her people with light and happiness.

The people have come up with many different reasons on why we switch places.

If only they knew that the sun just got tired, and let her moon watch over.