Shiloh met the sun on a park bench in July. She wasn’t want he expected.

She chain-smoked, lighting each cigarette with the still-glowing stub of the last. She wore shorts last seen in a Nair ad from the seventies and had a shag of messy amber curls in a mane-like corona around her oddly plain face. She also stole his beer.

“See,” she said, grinding her a cigarette to embers on the bottom of her bare foot while taking the first drag on the next, “the thing you don’t realize is that we can come down here whenever we like. You’re just not interesting enough to make us want to do that.”

Shiloh wasn’t sure if she was referring to humans as a whole or just him. Either way, it didn’t make him feel too good. “I’m sorry?” he said after a long pause. The beer can sat on the bench between them, drained.

She appeared to ignore him. “And would you stop with the sunscreen? Jeez, if you don’t like the ultraviolets, just say so.”

Shiloh had never been happier to see rain the next day.