Person Tanning on Pentacrest Actually Just Naked

Yes, Really.

This past Monday, smack-dab in the middle of the Pentacrest where the four paths meet, underneath the cold, bleak, zero-UV clouds, a University of Iowa student was found tanning: limp, almost lifeless, displaying his meaty, hard nipples for everyone to see; however, what was most jarring, most cruel, and most ludicrous about this finding was that he was naked. Completely naked. Naked in the wind, naked, letting the smallest sliver of sun seep into his white skin, naked and letting the wind blow his little pecker from one side to the other, naked, yet not afraid.

Word quickly spread and, soon after, handfuls of students piled around the tanning body, admiring, searching for a reason, and the police soon arrived on the scene. Officer Shane Dyerumper pushed and shoved through the crowd, parting the waves of students with swift force and fervor until, at last, he beheld the chains, anchored and fastened to the ground, and the cuffs, linked to the chains, and then he saw the chains and cuffs were attached to each limb, sprawling the body out and contorting it in a submissive and helpless position, and then he saw that he was clean shaven up and down and wore nothing but pitch-black sunglasses: underneath the glasses was a nose, and then the mouth, and the mouth was slim and neutral, sealed tightly and braced, shrinking, like the rest of his body against the wind, and the longer he examined the body the longer it sat, unbothered yet restless, with nothing moving except his manhood, flapping.

And the flashes, flashes and flashes and the camera shutter and the laughs, young men and women laughing, looking onwards and laughing at his helplessness, and the shade of pink, so sweet like evening hibiscus, flooded on Shane’s face; and the student was chiseled and white, carved out and stoic on the floor, seemingly prepared for the chalk to be outlined, so the officer held the chalk in his hand but he stared and gawked, hands on hips, itching to grab the radio for backup, but his hip dropped and he clutched the chalk in between the pointer and the middle. Laughter, talking, questions floating and buzzing.

What is behind the sunglasses?

Maybe it is the eyes, are they opened or closed? Bloodshot or clear? Brown, blue, hazel; maybe green, amber, or gray? Are the lashes long or short? How dilated are the pupils? Or maybe behind the sunglasses there are oceans to swim in with giant larvaceans, shooting, trapping and rebuilding, rebuilding and consuming; how many times can you check back in on your sustenance, and only your sustenance? What is keeping you alive is the only thing that matters, none of the flashes or the waves peaking out the top which create dizzy swirls and patterns for the light blue blanket and white bubbles to watch, matter. Or maybe there lies blackness behind the pitch-black, blanketing grassy hills and forming thick, wispy dew as the gray clouds that look like veins are painted along and around the yellow moon, a moon that now looks like a yellow eye, and the veins look like blood vessels, caressing and growing swiftly over the eye like thick vines and glaucoma until there is nothing but dew and grass hills that you can’t see. But you can’t see it, so it couldn’t be that.

And they chanted for the sunglasses to be stripped off, thrown to the side, thrown to the crowd who will bobble with the sunglasses and, eventually snap the lenses, the bridge, and the temples to ash, and they will walk away, for there is nothing left to see–

Nothing but his flapping penis, and so everyone will look at his penis, moving and squirming from fierce blows of wind’s mouth, but then they will get bored and leave. So the officer craned his neck and scratched his beard before he began to reach for his sunglasses, and as the temple was clinched with pointer and thumb, he stopped the movement and looked at the body’s penis so he could see if it was moving, and it was moving so he was content. Content with some sign of life, some sign of primal manhood and privacy exposed unabashedly, and he was content with the fact that everyone was deriving some energy out of its presence. There was no crime here.

And so the officer put away the chalk and swam through the crowd, and so they chanted, and they called for help, and they reported the crime, and they inched closer and closer to the body until their shoes touched the chains that were implanted in the ground, and when they collapsed on top of him they laughed and laughed and were very happy, exploding into confetti balls and touching their chests with one hand, leaving another to wave in the air as they rolled around on their backs, laughing and heaving, and then one person cracked the sunglasses.

Then everyone got up and made room to look at what was behind the sunglasses. The eyes were eyes, brown, with small pupils from being exposed to sudden light, and they stared at the clouds. They didn’t twitch when a guy snapped. They didn’t move when a girl waved her fingers. But he was alive. And there was no officer, no legal trouble, so people got bored and they left and he kept tanning, chained to the ground, unwavering, basking underneath a black blanket, harvesting to have something to eat.