Poke Fun PlayThe Snorlax Sunrise Club
The hill has one officially perfect place to watch sunrise. Snorlax has chosen it for sleeping, and the club is preparing a complaint.
Meeting one: a substantial obstruction
The Sunrise Club's rules were short enough to fit on a biscuit tin. Arrive before the sun. Bring a blanket. Leave the hill as you found it. Do not speak during the first minute of light. Nora, the founder and sole person in charge of the tin, was considering a fifth rule when Snorlax arrived: do not sleep in the officially perfect viewing spot. She hesitated because the rule sounded rather pointed, and Snorlax could probably not read it anyway.
The spot lay beside the old wall at the hill's crest. From there the church weather vane lined up with a gap between two distant trees, making the sunrise look as if someone had designed it specifically for the club. Nora had photographed that alignment twenty-seven times. This morning the alignment contained Snorlax's large sleeping shoulder. Club members stood behind it with blankets, mugs, and the grave expressions of people who had got out of warm beds for a problem.
Buneary, who came mainly for the crumbs left after breakfast, tried to hop around Snorlax. The grass on one side was wet; on the other stood the wall. It could see the sky perfectly well by moving three paces downhill, but Nora pointed out that the weather vane no longer lined up. Buneary looked at the sky, then at the weather vane, then back at Nora. It seemed willing to forgive the error. Nora was not yet ready to be so broad-minded.
Combee arrived from the lower orchard and hovered above the wall. It circled Snorlax's sleeping head, descended near the grass, and vanished behind the great body. Nora assumed it was looking for an abandoned breakfast. She asked everyone to move their food carefully so crumbs would not invite an insect crowd. A club member named Arun observed that Combee had no interest in the biscuits. It was following something else, perhaps a patch of flowers. Nora wrote 'inspect obstruction' on the back of the biscuit tin label.
They tried coughing politely. Snorlax breathed on. They tried a gentle greeting from a sensible distance. Snorlax shifted one paw, causing four people to step back at once. Somebody suggested tapping the shoulder. Nora rejected that immediately. A sleeping Pokémon had not agreed to be a piece of furniture that could be rearranged for a photograph. Their options were to move themselves or miss the sunrise. They moved downhill, with more dignity than enthusiasm.
The sun rose through a bank of thin cloud. It was pink, imperfectly centered, and entirely indifferent to the weather vane. Buneary sat on a dry stone and looked pleased. Arun sketched the clouds instead of taking a picture. Nora watched the light, then glanced back at Snorlax, still asleep beside the wall. She had enjoyed the minute despite herself, which made the unfinished fifth rule even harder to write.
As they packed away, Combee emerged from behind Snorlax with bright pollen dusting its small faces. Buneary followed it through a gap near the wall. Nora almost called them back, then noticed the pollen. The hill's grass looked bare from where she stood. Something out of sight was already having a much better morning than the committee.
Meeting two: unsuccessful negotiations
The next morning Nora arrived earlier. Her plan was to occupy the perfect spot before Snorlax settled down. Snorlax was already there. It had apparently booked the entire night. A thin rim of frost silvered the grass beyond the wall, but the patch around the sleeping body was damp and green. Nora placed her blanket downhill and made no comment. A founder should not be observed losing an argument to somebody who had never woken up for it.
Arun brought a flask and proposed a different view from the east slope. Nora argued that the slope would leave the village behind them. 'That is usually how looking east works,' he said. Buneary bounced between the two blankets, enjoying the increase in possible breakfast locations. Combee returned and disappeared behind Snorlax again. This time Nora followed from a distance, bending to peer through the narrow gap beside the wall. She saw a flash of yellow, then nothing as Snorlax's paw shifted.
They did not approach closer. Instead they waited for the sun, which arrived behind a cloud shaped like an extraordinarily large spoon. One club member photographed the spoon. Another claimed it looked like a sleeping duck. Nora's carefully quiet first minute dissolved into whispered disagreement. Snorlax remained the only perfectly silent member. Buneary found that distinction funny enough to make a small snuffling noise, which Nora pretended not to hear.
After sunrise, Snorlax rolled onto its other side. The movement revealed a shallow dip between the wall and its belly. Tiny yellow flowers grew there, their stems sheltered by the stone and the broad warmth of the sleeping body. The flowers were open even though the exposed grass remained frosted. Combee hovered over them. Buneary sat very carefully at the dip's edge, paws drawn in so it would not crush a single stem.
Nora finally put down the biscuit tin. She had walked past that wall for years without noticing the dip. The flowers were an early-blooming variety, small enough to disappear among old grass. Arun knelt well back and drew them. A breeze came over the crest, but most of it passed above the sheltered patch. Snorlax exhaled, and the nearest petals trembled. Its sleeping place had a purpose that did not involve deliberately ruining twenty-eight photographs.
Or perhaps Snorlax simply liked a comfortable hollow, Nora admitted. They did not know its reasons. It would be easy to invent a touching story in which the great Pokémon had carefully appointed itself guardian of every flower. The actual evidence was smaller: it slept there, the patch stayed sheltered, and Combee came to visit. That was enough reason to stop treating the spot as empty space waiting for the club's blanket.
Nora collected a fallen petal from the path, not a flower from the dip, and tucked it under the tin's label. The fifth rule still had not been written. Now she had a different possibility for it. Before claiming a perfect place, check who is already using it. She did not write that yet either. The club needed to practice it once before adding another instruction to breakfast.
Meeting three: the club changes shape
On the third morning, Nora brought a second blanket. She placed one below the crest for the familiar village view and one on the east slope for the open sky. Members could choose. This complicated the biscuit distribution but improved almost everything else. Arun claimed the eastern blanket and began drawing the clouds. Buneary stood between the two locations, visibly calculating whether choosing one would make breakfast disappear from the other.
Snorlax occupied its usual hollow. Nora greeted it quietly from the path, without demanding that it acknowledge the meeting. Combee arrived before sunrise and waited on the wall. The flowers were closed. The night had been mild, so the frost line was absent; their petals held beads of dew instead. Nora realized that she could see different parts of the morning from the same hill if she stopped looking only for the alignment she already knew.
A new member arrived carrying a folding chair. She had avoided the club before because sitting on the ground was uncomfortable, and the perfect spot left little room for anything else. Nora showed her the level patch beside the lower blanket. Another member brought a child who preferred watching insects to sitting through a silent ceremony. Combee supplied an immediate topic of conversation. Nora considered enforcing the quiet minute, looked at the child's fascinated face, and let the minute find its own volume.
When the first sun reached the dip, the flowers opened slowly. It was not a single theatrical burst. One petal loosened, another followed, and the smallest flower remained stubbornly closed. Buneary watched with its ears leaning forward. Snorlax's paw rested close to the stems. It lifted the paw in its sleep and set it down a little farther away. Nora noticed the movement but did not turn it into a speech. A small considerate-looking gesture could remain small.
The club's old view was still available, though from a different height. The weather vane pointed northwest, ruining the alignment anyway. Arun laughed when Nora showed him. She laughed too, to her own surprise. The perfect sunrise had always depended on several things nobody could arrange: clouds, wind, leaf growth, and the cheerful disregard of a rotating metal rooster. Snorlax was only the most substantial reminder. The hill did not owe the club a repeat performance.
At breakfast, Buneary received a little suitable food of its own, so it no longer needed to search among people's biscuit crumbs. Combee continued visiting the flowers. The club gathered every wrapper and checked beneath the blankets before leaving. Nora asked the new member whether the chair location had worked. It had. The child asked whether the next meeting could begin by looking at the dip rather than the weather vane. Nora put both suggestions on the back of the tin.
The fifth rule finally took shape as they walked downhill. 'Make room,' Nora wrote. It was shorter than the other versions and applied to more than Snorlax. Buneary hopped beside her, pleased with a breakfast that had not depended on anyone dropping something. Above them, the crest held a sleeping Pokémon, a handful of flowers, and the first full morning of a club that no longer needed to fit into one perfect place.
The unofficial member
A week later, Snorlax was gone. The hollow lay empty, the flowers visible from the path. Nora reached the hill early and stood where the perfect photograph could finally be taken again. The weather vane aligned. The trees framed the east. Nothing obstructed the view. She could place the original blanket beside the wall, reclaim the center, and forget the committee's brief experiment. Instead she walked to the lower patch and unfolded the two blankets where they now belonged.
Arun arrived and noticed the empty hollow. He suggested that Snorlax might have found a place with a later breakfast. Nobody knew. Buneary sniffed the flattened grass, then settled carefully near the flowers. Combee came, circled twice, and went to work. The patch remained sheltered by the stone, though frost would reach it more easily on colder nights. Nora took a picture of the empty hollow, not to prove anything but because absence had become another detail worth noticing.
For three mornings the club watched from its new places. They did not put a sign in the hollow reserving it for Snorlax. They did not build a fence around the flowers or feed the hill's wild Pokémon unsuitable leftovers to make them stay. They kept their footsteps to the path and let the season proceed. On a cloudy morning they saw no sunrise at all. The child inspected dew on a web instead, and the new member declared her chair an excellent cloud-watching chair.
Snorlax returned on the fourth night. Its arrival was recorded mainly by a great slow exhalation that drifted down the hill while Nora packed her bag in the dark. By dawn it slept beside the wall as if no departure had occurred. Buneary greeted it from the edge of the hollow. Combee passed over its nose. One eye opened just enough to inspect the morning, then closed again. The club did not applaud. Applause was a poor greeting for someone who had come to rest.
The new member asked whether Snorlax had joined the club officially. Nora opened the biscuit tin, which contained blankets' spare clips, the fallen petal, and a membership list nobody had consulted in months. There was no practical reason to demand a signature. She added a small drawing beside the names: a round sleeping shape with a flower near its paw. It was not an official enrollment. It was a record of someone who had changed the meetings without attending a single discussion.
Later in spring the yellow flowers finished blooming. Other plants rose from the dip, and Combee found them just as interesting. Snorlax shifted its sleeping position to follow the shade. Nora's twenty-seven matching sunrise pictures remained in her album, joined by clouds, a chair, a damp Buneary, and a metal rooster facing entirely the wrong way. The newer pictures had less perfect composition and more evidence that anybody had been there.
The club kept its first four rules. The fifth stayed on the tin in Nora's neat handwriting. Nobody reached a conclusion about whether Snorlax considered itself a member. On the morning somebody asked, it rolled onto its back, snored once, and startled three Combee into a rapid upward swirl. Buneary laughed so hard it nearly lost its breakfast. Nora wrote nothing on the tin. Some contributions to a club could not sensibly be made into rules.
An original fan-created story by the Poke Fun Play editorial team. Illustrations generated for this adventure.
Featured Pokémon
Snorlax
Combee
BunearyKeep exploring
Related stories
CozyDedenne and the Thread Bridge
A rainy-day message line links two workshops across a courtyard. Dedenne wants to send something special, but the bridge has room for a kinder sort of contribution than anyone planned.
Read story →
CozyMimikyu at the Costume Parade
Mimikyu wants to join the lantern parade, but its traditional final reveal makes belonging feel risky. A sudden shower gives the neighbors a reason to rethink the tradition.
Read story →
CozyRowlet and the Clocktower Garden
A hidden garden above the city has one small guardian. When the roof must be repaired, Rowlet needs a plan that can protect more than a patch of green.
Read story →Related retailers
Coloring books on Amazon · Pokémon cards on TCGplayer
Paid links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. We may earn a commission from purchases through our TCGplayer links.