The time doesn’t fly. It passes quite slowly, in fact. But there is something about the dying scarlet streaks that draws one moment into several, as I watch the day draw its last breath and wonder how the world can move so fast when something so cruel and beautiful dwindles overhead. With every hand this luminous deity sinks, it seems that bit sadder, which is the true anchor that roots me to this spot; like the echo of the loneliness that was left behind with me when you set my sun with you.
This is my collection, this melancholy symphony of sunsets, destined to sink and set and sleep as I watch them as if from beyond time. And these moments are no more special because you dance with my thoughts, but there is something about the waning of day that sharpens the ache.
Somewhere, your sun is also setting and I wonder if the yellow sea across the sky is caught on your mind, too. In the paradox of parallax your world and mine look quite the same. And perhaps we share this collection of sunsets, frozen in moments too long to measure, sharing the sun’s lament as it meets the horizon with a tired embrace, and think about how two worlds can be so close and yet so far apart.
And though it is nearly impossible to drag my eyes from above, there is yet some solace in the world below, that obeys calamity and continues to turn even while it bears our golden guardian to the night. For below, between shimmering waves, the sun seeks its companion, too: its shining reflection, beckoning from beyond the mirror on the other side of the sun’s own paradox. And I draw comfort that the sun closes its day not drowning in the agony of loneliness but exalting in the end of a long journey, and an embrace not with the dark horizon but the most beautiful reunion that I would collect a thousand sunsets to reach.
So it blunts the bite of my collection to dream that—somehow, somewhere—your collection also grows with the wish of that beautiful reunion. And that once we reach our horizons, one may find us sharing the same world again, collecting one more sunset together.
In which case, whether the time moves slow or fast is irrelevant. The sun has its lover, the day has its close, and I have you. All collections are complete.