The Dusk

Dusks, I believe, are everywhere. One for every ship, and one, perhaps, for every soul. Take, for instance, that fluidly coalescing dusk on the horizon, watched in quintessential serenity by gentle drafts and eternally strolling waves, which, in ways both entirely perceptible and latent, are the perfect counterpart and counterpane to the vanishing sun. And then that dusk in my heart, that which is mine, that which is a child to my nascent gusts and a parent to my senescent storms, and that which is hence acutely and remorselessly chaotic.

I am an engine's honk away from home and rest, walking my well-worn daily trail. Inward my mind is restless, for this is when I reflect. Outward I observe, and the world is what I make of it. I am crossing a wide, barren field, with a queue of trees patrolling its ambits. They imprison its bounds, but also help me escape, for the knowledge of a limit is the strongest incentive to breach it. In my case, I look inside, and I find my mind grasping for a parable, a peek through the window of the utopian unseen, searching for love and beauty at places where I believe they exist. In fewer words, I wish to be with my beloved, and my mind seeks her. Her company, for one, or just her presence, for another.

She is that perfect dusk for me, that utopian evening on a white-sand beach, amidst soft unceasing murmurs of harmless waves that seem to speak the true language of peace and pleasure. The beach is unoccupied, but for the two of us, and we look out at an equally unoccupied ocean, broken in its solitude by a single ship, its mast proud and red, its listing even and sound. The sun is resting in the combined laps of a hundred floating wisps of vermilion cumulus, seeming to smile down on the carelessly intertwined fates of our twin bodies. Love and quiet. Peace, and beauty. Meanwhile, the sun outside is plotting its curtain call, and looks poised to hide behind a building to my right and ahead. The building is one of the many hostels, a brick-red structure whose brick-redness has changed in time to a slick-wetness, grimy black in countenance and derelict in appeal. The sight is equally humorous and poignant, and it seems to be the perfect mockery, a blindingly accurate metaphor of all I have made of my life. The setting sun seems to bleed with my own vigour, sinking like my heart behind a symbol of dilapidation, a broken obelisk that looks in its character eerily like my existence. For a moment I picture this as my own dusk, my final defeated reply to the kitchen-sink called life, and also, probably, my last reprieve. The mast of my ship suddenly seems to darken from red to black, its fabric stretching at first, and finally ripping at places to show the crimson sky on the other side.The waves have suddenly gained strength, and the wind has begun to shriek. A tsunamic war-call seems in order, and the ship is tilting forever to its inundated end, waiting to fill up with the monstrously rising waters. Even the sun, my own heart, watches now with a curve of lip that is not a smile as much as it is a deprecating smirk. My whole world seems to have turned against me in a few moments of casual introspection, dripping with congealing drops of blood that vaporize on touch. My walk turns faster, wishing to be done with its course, already tired of this cursed elapse that has sodomized my sanity in no time. I look helter-skelter, my eyes turning pell-mell, this way and that, rolling in and about, meeting sights with acceptance but no understanding. I finally close them, and my peace suddenly returns.

I stare into the depthless eyes of my love, forgotten-thus-far but present nonetheless, here, right by my side, holding my hands in both of hers, telling me wordlessly to look out at the ocean again. I do, and I acknowledge an affirmative shock. The gory scene has transformed to one of tranquility again, and all my questions are answered. It is the benevolent sun and the resurrected ship that speak in unison, informing me that love alone is glue enough.

I open my eyes, and I see I stand beyond the tree-lined quadrangle, in sight of my hostel. The limit has been breached, and I see the world beyond. The sun may set wherever it may wish to, but my love shall remain, forever fiery and alive. She shall be my world when my world decides to cave in, and she shall be all I need.

I shall survive. This dusk, and every other.