How To Make Your Own Sunshine by Deborah Torr

Making homemade sunshine is an easy and fun way to bring a little more light into your life! Follow these simple steps to make your very own pocket-sized sunbeam.

Step 1. Gather your raw materials.

Those with more experience might use ancient stardust or bottled fireflies, but solar panels are the perfect suntraps for budding pyromaniacs. Solar panels can be found at your local DIY store, or by clambering onto a neighbour’s roof and crowbarring one free.

Find yourself hovering by the glow of the microwave long after your husband has gone to bed. At the ding, pause as you let the full weight of the darkness fall on you.

Step 2. Decant the sunlight into a container.

Jump up and down on the solar panel until you start to see sparks fly off. Brush these shards into a takeaway container. Don’t worry if suntrails spill over the sides; this is, of course, an imperfect science.

Make a cup of decaf. Look up flights to Lanzarote. Climb the stairs to your bedroom, holding your breath. Dream of taking a baseball bat to those fluorescent lights downstairs that make you feel cold all over.

Step 3. Harden the shards in fire.

Don a pair of goggles and lower the sunshine shards on a garden trowel into the flame of a Bunsen burner for five minutes. Wait for the shards to melt, form a putty, and then harden.

Wake up on the darkest day of the year and tick off every new years resolution going. Do some squats while you wait for your coffee to brew. Tell your colleagues your mood is an 8/10. Wait in the toilet cubicle until your face no longer looks red and blotchy.

Step 4. Remove any impurities.

Watch out for those pesky phosphorescent splinters caused by mucky hands! A blowtorch will quickly burn off any blemishes which could dull the shine of your beam.

At home, find your husband playing Skyrim for the third night in a row. Ignore thoughts that press up against you, that ask what it is he can’t stand about you. Book those flights to Lanzarote.  

Step 5. Choose the hue of your sunbeam.

This is the fun part! Pipe in neon for pink, helium for yellow, argon for blue. If you’re feeling adventurous, mix the noble gases together for a rainbow colour scheme.

Listen to birdsong. Go the cinema alone. Buy a yellow dress and wear it on Mondays.

Step 6. You now have your very own crystallised beam of sunshine.

Take it to the supermarket, to the office, to dinner parties – anywhere an existential crisis might strike. Stand in its warm glow when you are feeling down. Hang it above your bed as a nightlight and watch as the shadows float away.

Drive a sledgehammer through your bedroom ceiling to create a makeshift skylight. Tell your husband you are getting a divorce.

Deborah Torr is a writer from South London and is one of the London Library’s Emerging Writers 2019. Deborah has been published by Spread the Word and shortlisted for the 2019 Sunderland Short Story Award. Find her at @deborah_torr