I saw it, perfectly resonant within utmost clarity.
Criss-crossed lines of overpolish glow luminescent behind the last draught of ale as my tipped glass catches the sun, refelcting in golden radiance.
A late-Autumn wind ambles through the sky and appears to almost steal the daylight from the air as it passes, following the sun’s dip below the treeline and leaving a chill in its absence.
Somewhere a butcher bird warbles and I find myself to be alone upon the edge of the world, nothing but the bush and last coda of daylight before me.
A sunset, pure orange and perfectly nestled within its brilliance. Orange and blue, meeting in graded harmony, a fire that grows without movment; this silent prelude to the arrival of nightfall.
Between these colours lies memory, a memory of day, a memory of all things that will collide with arrogance or in good intention; they meet, they wash into each other, not forming a line but existing in coalescence.
I see the stillness of the trees.
The wavering heart of the bush suddenly rests in pause as the hour becomes dwarfed by the sheer vastness of sky above it. Shadows recede into the pricks of a needle as the land below becomes awash with the light of the sun. Clouds, streaked across this canvas of sky, seem to almost leap into flames: glowing as like an iron held into a forge.
The light grows and consumes the horizon, all before it now embering within wildfire, life becomes filled with shades as if trapped in faded still. A single moment of choral wonderment that stirs with it every possible emotion. In this moment I question anger with rage, I look toward greed with jealousy, I think of all things to be possible and I cry without hope for the future.
And, as with all else, this too will fade.
Time makes weary travelers of us all and so to the passing sun.
It slows, no longer a brash display of colour and boldness, but now a life subdued that rests upon the fenceline of the horizon.
It watches over us, an elder of tired eyes that has seen the passing of seasons and years; It watches the land below, the crumpled parchment of fanua that shifts and moves, following in it’s passing.
Shadows, now unafraid of the fire, grow long and define the world around them. They hide gullies, that snake through fields unseen; bridges of stone become outlined so as each pebble holds its own life; solitary trees, tall as the very sky, are cast in contrast as their leaves ripple upon the surface of hidden pools drenched by shadow and light; the furtive moss hides itself in darkness, shielding its eyes from day’s last warmth.
I too close my eyes; the passing glare leaves me to squint as a dark patch appears across my vision. I feel old in this moment, tired.
In the dusk, it passes.
A receding tide washing away colour from the boldly outlined horizon. It blurs definition and paints its trail in watercolour, an orange crest clutching to the edges of day as hues of green and blue intermingle, reaching outward in yawning stretch.
Beyond these, a darkness broods in melencolia.
It does not appear in dramatic bursts but instead pools outward from the spaces between; it expands, striding forward without apparent movement; passively absorbing the sky and becoming all, becoming singular.
This darkness, this night, grows boundless; what was once a ceiling now stands as an expanse, a void of absolute distance that eclipses the reaches of vision and opens up the entire universe into plain view.
The dwindling light, now just a single point atop the treeline, wavers as if it were a flickering lighthouse, struggling against the clasping storm that so easily swallows the coastline.
Tension exhales and the day leaves us with little ceremony.
It is done, the last great spectacle of day has reached its end.
Light, now smothered by the blanket of night, gives way to nocturne as the noise of stirring possums echoes from the eucalypts by the tavern’s far fence.
The distant hills become alive with barks and howls as a wallaby takes fright, bolting through the scrub with panicked flight.
Our day is done, gentle campfires can be seen to dot the valley but their time is fleeting, scraps of daylight, imitations within the burning of wood.
Soon we shall all drift away and the sun shall rise again without us.
The quiet of night, so bookended by a beauty eternal.
J.McCray
2020
Sunday Short Stories 