Sue Vincent’s latest #writephoto prompt is

Crestfallen the Biddable goggled at his boss, Demotic the Unwise. ‘Are you sure, sir?’
‘Do you really have to ask that question? Again,’ the terminally disappointed dictator forced himself to say. ‘I want it and I want it now.’
‘All of it?’ Crestfallen hoped he hadn’t heard right but, really, he knew he had.
‘Of course all of it, you toenail clipping. Those bloody farmers are always moaning about the weather, how it’s always too hot or wet or cold… whinge whinge whinge. Well, let them see how they get on in the dark. They’ve got the brains of a mushroom so let them live like one.’
Crestfallen tried to nod but his neck was weighed down with the miserable consequences of his latest commission. ‘I suppose we could make a sort of pool, sir. A trap. Catch all the sunbeams and hold them until you let them go…’
Demotic grabbed Crestfallen by his jerkin which squealed with surprise but not with delight. ‘Look, you useless landscape contourer, either you catch all the sunlight and keep it until I say what we do with it or I’ll have you sculpting glaciers with your bare fingers for a couple of eternities.’ He shook the jerkin off (which, now freed of the vicelike though unpleasantly sweaty grip scuttled into Crestfallen’s knapsack) and waved his gardener away. ‘And no, I’m not letting them have the sunshine back until they acknowledge that I am the greatest.’
‘Greatest what, you unpleastantness?’
But Demotic had already moved away.
Crestfallen set to, molding the landscape to create an enormous trap into which the sun poured itself – it being rather at a loose end on Thursdays and happy to try something new – at which point Crestfallen slammed the lid shut, clipped in place the padlock and went home for his sausage supper.
It didn’t take long. The wailing and gnashing and general ho-hummery grew to a crescendo, which like all full grown crescendos really need to be sunlight to thrive but since it was dark and everyone was miserable it began to wilt.
Crestfallen was summoned to the palace. Demotic sat on his throne polishing his crimes and counting his collection of evils. ‘It’s dark, moron.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’m fed up with mushroom everything.’
‘Quite so.’
‘So let the bloody sun out to do its thing.’
‘No one has said you’re the greatest, boss.’
‘I know. They’re planning on surprising me. Just get that lazy ball of fire back where it belongs and…’
‘That’s not going to be so easy…’
Demotic dropped pain and terror back into their boxes with a start. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well I sort of assumed you’d want that and I had a quick word, just to find out how quickly he could be back, crossing the firmament, giving light, warming the day, spreading joy…’
‘Yes, yes, we all know the sodding sun has a bloody ego the size of a constellation but it’s his job.’
‘He likes it in the sun trap. He says it’s restful and he’s going to stay put.’
‘He can’t do that.’
‘He says everyone else want the sun when they go on vacation – well, now it’s his turn to have a vacation with himself.’
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘It did when I wrote it.’
‘Tell him to shift his orb, the good for nothing ball of fuel…’
‘He has a point. I mean we all expect him to be up before the day and going down after the night and apparently, though I didn’t know this until he told me, when he goes down at night here, he’s doing another shift of daytime round the other side of the planet…’
‘He’s moonlighting?’
‘Well, in a sense but I think it’s more he’s daylighting. Thing is, he says thanks for making the trap and he’ll just rest his rays for a bit before coming back.’
‘How long?’
‘Half a dozen eons.’
‘Six! Oh he can’t be serious.’
‘He thought you’d say that so he made a suggestion.’
‘What?’
‘You worship him.’
‘Hello? I’m the terrible ruler hereabouts. You lot are meant to worship me, not that glorified light bulb.’
‘It’s just an idea. Make him the centre of everything, have people chant his name, offer him sacrifices, that sort of thing and he maybe prepared to put in an appearance. A sort of celestial cameo. Four hours a day.’
‘Eighteen.’
‘Ten.’
‘Twelve.’
‘Done. And he’ll have that crescendo, too.’
‘What the wilting one?’
‘Yep. He has this idea he’ll start his shift with something of a bang. Sort of day break.’
Demotic picked up misery and poked it in the eye. ‘I always hated Thursdays.’