Dear Readers,

This may be due to my obsessive fan love of all things Tesla-related, but while I was watching the film version of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, I was reminded of my beloved inventor far too many times for me to ignore them. The pain Max had to go through trying to sort out the complexities of childhood and of an imperfect life made me think back to what may have been the defining tragic moment in (the real) Tesla's life: the untimely death of his older brother. As I watched Max struggle to accept the fact that sadness and hurt can't be prevented, that people can't make life perfect, in the back of my mind I thought of how much that struggle mirrored what Tesla may have gone through as a little child struggling to understand the confusion that comes with death. Perhaps it was this inability to grasp this understanding at such a young age that drove Tesla to become an idealist, to try as hard as he could to create a perfect world that he envisioned in his mind. And so, this little ficlet was born. It's obviously somewhat based off the Max in the movie, and the title is a reference to the movie as well (as a sidenote, I highly recommend seeing it). Also, it is loosely based on an actual historical incident in which Tesla, upset over the loss of his brother and over his inability to ease his parents' pain with his own accomplishments, ran away from home and hid in a little chapel (which he was accidentally locked in overnight) in the nearby woods.

I had been wanting to write a fic based on this incident for quite a while, but it was only until I saw that beautiful film that I found the right way in which to convey what needed to be said. I hope I've done both him and Max justice, but I suppose that's for you to judge.

Once again, I thank you for reading and reviewing.

Best regards from a bookworm (and obsessive Tesla fan),

Miss Pookamonga ;-P

The Day the Sun Died

He was wild.

He was free.

He whipped through the forest, kicking up clouds of fallen leaves and clods of dirt as he blazed a trail not traveled before. With every leap, every shuffle, every thud of his feet pounding out a new rhythm against the drum of once somber ground, he paved a new road through his kingdom, leading the way for great men to follow in his footsteps. This was his land, his world, and nothing could stand in his way. Every root could be skipped over, every pebble punted to the side, every branch and every leaf thrust away from him. He commanded this place. Nothing, nothing could happen unless he willed it, no evil forces could invade and destroy what he had built with his own two hands. He was the king, and there was nothing, no one, that could ever knock him down.

So then why did he feel like his whole world was being ripped apart?

It was here in these trees that he had made his home and had built up walls to protect himself and all with him from the monsters that shrieked dreadful omens from the outlying darkness. It was here, underneath the protection of the wise old towers of bark and leaf which spread above him that he had taken refuge from all the dark things that threatened to hurt him. Everything he'd dreamed up and built, everything he'd imagined had so far kept out the darkness and had encompassed him in a shield of light and warmth. But now, something had gone wrong, and everything was falling apart.

The walls were crumbling as he ran, sending showers of the broken pieces of his heart raining down upon him. The light which had once shielded him was being swallowed up by a great dark creature that was licking every trace of joy from every corner of his kingdom. The trees that had once protected him were swaying and moaning in pain, as if they had all been struck by winds of an invisible storm. There was chaos erupting everywhere, tossing him violently within its grasp, and he couldn't escape, couldn't fix it all, couldn't make sense of any of it.

So he ran.

He ran as he had so often run before, creating new paths through the blankets of leaves with the steady pounding of his feet. But this time, the path he blazed was not one of wild imagination and hopeful dreams, but instead one wrought out of fear. He was scared, so scared of the monsters chasing him, so scared of the darkness screeching and howling at him, so close behind. He was wild, he was free, but they were even wilder and freer, faster and stronger, and he knew in his heart that he couldn't outrun them forever. But the fear propelled him forward, so he kept running through the storm, showers and flashes of light blinding his vision, until he suddenly lost footing and was sent hurtling downward into a puddle of mud and rotting leaves.

It was the sharp force of impact that suddenly told him that he had been defeated. The pain coursing through him was a load far too heavy to bear, and all his strength had been spent building up the fortress that had once kept him safe. So he let the monsters and the darkness come, devouring him with their jaws of despair and confusion until he, once the wild and free king, was nothing more than a hollow skeleton.

He curled up into a ball and finally, the sobs that had been screaming within him to be let out burst forth in a raging storm all their own. Everything he'd tried to run from suddenly overcame him like black clouds thickening over the sun. Death had never been a reality until now, sadness had never been a truth until now, and pain had never been anything more than something he'd heard adults occasionally discuss in conversation. But everything was hitting him at once, and he was defenseless and powerless to stop it.

His brother was dead.

And that was enough to send his whole world crumbling to pieces.

He didn't understand. He had tried so hard to make his world perfect and happy, had tried to ward off all the sadness. But it had still wormed its way through the cracks and had stolen everything from him, and now he was all alone in an empty land, a king dethroned.

He had held on so tightly to thing he prized the most, yet it had been his hand that had unwittingly thrown Dane off the horse, handing him over to the grim claws of death. He hadn't meant to scare it. He hadn't meant to make his brother fall. But even kings made mistakes, and now he was paying for his greatest mistake of all.

So now, alone among the pouring rain and crashing thunder, lying amid the ruins of his destroyed kingdom, the wild thing within him broke free in a way it never had before. Instead of whooping and shouting for joy, it let out a deafening howl of inconceivable sorrow that echoed across every acre of the ruined kingdom, pulsating through the cold air and crushing to dust anything left standing.

He howled and wailed and roared in agony until his voice failed him and he was left lying in a rainy pit of deathly silence.

And all was dark, cold, and frightening, much like death itself.

It was if the sun had set for the last time, never to rise again.

In the distance, his watery eyes suddenly spied the blurry form of the little forest chapel his father had so often visited, back in the days when the sun had spread its rays lovingly upon the earth. Perhaps if his kingdom was gone, he at least could find some protection in this holy place. Wearily, he pushed himself up out of the mud and limped like some wounded animal towards the only shelter he had left. He opened the door and stumbled into the silent sanctuary before promptly collapsing onto the hard wooden floor.

And then, there in the empty quiet of this last remaining fortress, he felt the sobs surge up within him again until his entire being was once more bleeding with anguish.

He was still alone.

And it was still dark. Dark as a nighttime that refused to lift away from his soul.

So he, the king-turned-brute, cried out to God to take his life away.

He had made the sun set…maybe if he was gone then it could rise again.

But somehow he knew it was already too late.