Delia Dominic checked her watch and readjusted her hat wordlessly as a poisonous smoke snake hissed out of the corner of Colin's mouth. In half an hour the sun would be completely set and the city would be lost in a glowy haze supported only by the moon, the stars, and the streetlights.
They had been coming here to watch the sunset every dusk for the past four and half years. Colin never said why, and Delia never asked, but she knew regardless. He like the way the sun kindled the lake, setting it awash in a blaze of colors. Reds and oranges, yellows and amber pinks streaked across the calm surface, perterbed only on occasion by a fish whose scales caught the reflection and sent rainbows of water droplets dancing up to breath the sky before they dove back down again. He liked the way something so simple as a lake could be transformed into something so complex and beautifully different as a sunset without even trying.
Colin pulled another long drag off his stick, ashes fell off the tip and descended in a spiral, circling around themselves. A wind cut across the opening of the pipe and sucked them out into the open air where they dissappeared into the encroaching nightfall. He inhaled, pulling the smoke and the disease into his lungs, and then released it through his nostrils slowly. It burned and he shuddered, putting the cigarette out against the concrete wall to his right where it left a black mark. The pipe was populated with similiar marks. They had been coming here for the past four and a half years.
As the last rays of light disappeared Colin cleared his throat, turning his back on a colorless Lake Maoge. Delia stuck her face out past the edge of the pipe into the night lake air and filled her lungs with it. Then they left, as silent as they had been while witnessing the repeat performance death of the lake, returning to a city that had only just begun to come to life.
 Kekroka · Tue May 01, 2007 @ 05:07pm · 0 Comments |
