Suns Set

The sun is big and red in the sky. The view is better from the terrace. During the climb up the stairs the sun is hidden from view but the memory of it is more incredible; it’s a perfect circle with the most amazing colour – to call it merely “red” is injustice – that fills the world with happiness. It’s pasted in the canvas it deserves, dark blue above gradually turning lighter to a perfect orange around the disc. It’s a fogless day, there are no clouds either, and there is magic in the uncorrupted play of colours in the sky.

Then the stairs end and the terrace opens out ahead. The brilliantly glowing star shrinks, dulls down to its original shade and loses some of its grandeur, as does the sky behind. It is still beautiful though.

I have never really seen the sun set. But this time I’m adamant. I hold on to the cold concrete wall separating me from the 10-story fall, and I stare at the sun. My peripheral vision notes lone birds fighting the chilly breeze, little kids dragging themselves home as the night advances; things that I would normally pay more attention to, but not today. Not today because similar things have cost me sunsets before, you look away for a minute and the sun is gone. And it doesn't make sense how abruptly and without valediction it disappears. So now I concentrate on the red circle.

In the 10 minutes that I spend purposefully motionless, the sun moves further down. And I realize 2 things: One, that the horizon is not where I thought it was at all. It was not the meeting point of the sea and the sky. Not for the sun. Its horizon or point of crossing over was at a much greater height. So I suddenly find myself with much less time than I thought I had with it.

And second that as it moves toward its finish line, it fades progressively. The red blurs around the edges and seeps out into the orange background... The sky loses all of its beauty when I gather that it has been stealing my sun, as I stood watching. The sky was still exquisite in itself and I would have been able to appreciate that had it not been depriving me of the sun’s company.

I put my anger aside because I am down to our last precious moments together. And though it was a clear day, the colours seemed to have a layer above, dulling them like a thin sheet of cloud. The sun is not nearly as glorious at it was earlier, but its majesty does not matter anymore, there is only an inexplicable need to keep it there a little while longer. My stare intensifies with this need, as though with more effort on my part I could slow its departure. I don’t notice immediately that as I concentrate on keeping it there, the bottom has already gone.

The sun and the sky are almost the same colour now. And then the entire thing vanishes. I panic but don’t look away. I blink and I can make out a hazy semicircle. When I blink, it appears for a few seconds and then disappears again. My blinking becomes more frequent and my time with the faint picture is briefer. Then I wonder if I am imagining it there.

Shortly after, my imagination fails me, too. Suns set, it is inevitable. And I am alone.