500 Words for a Sunset

Nothing makes one feel insignificant quite like the sky does. Have you ever rode a bike down the road in the middle of the night and all you can really concentrate on is the sky full of shining stars? Or returning home in your car from a holiday and you see rain clouds behind you? It feels like a race against nature, doesn’t it?

The ego, pride, all the achievements look meaningless when you look up towards the sky changing colors from blue to red to purple in the evening. As the feeling of satisfaction rushes down my nerves, I mentally fist pump that I lived another day. I made something out of it. I look up to the sky as I stroll in the park. All the happy noises of the kids playing in the park, guffaws of the laughter therapy group, the rhythmic thumps of a jogger passing me, the music coming out of my earphone just mutes down to zero.

Earth is the only habitable place for millions of miles in any direction you go. And I’m standing here on earth. A tiny little human enjoying the colorful dance of the evening as sun behaves like a reluctant child not wanting to go home after the soccer match but has to. I almost feel like the other friend left in the park because sun had to go home early. I don’t want to go home yet! I want to play with you for a little while more! Please stay. But just like a small child I’m quickly distracted by everything the sky has to offer me.

I am spellbound by the sheer beauty of the chaos in the sky. The clouds, the birds returning to their nests after a long day of labor to their little ones, the small insects taking their place and roaming freely in the darkened sky, that one cloud who really wants to let go of everything and dance as he rains happy tears for no reason whatsoever. I want to follow this sunset. I want to see it from every beautiful place man has created to relish thousands of sunsets passed and million more to come.

I am almost jealous of our ancestors who had a greener, earthy view of life as we know it but I quickly shove the feeling away to take in every bit of the sunset with everything I have. Is every sunset as beautiful as this one? Yes. It doesn’t matter where you are, who you are, nature doesn’t discriminate against anyone. Whether you’re in a desert, a skyscraper, on the banks of a river, in a slum, in your office, at home. Every sunset is just as beautiful and gives you just as much satisfaction.

I have never thanked God for not killing me in my sleep. That is the best death possible but that’s a story for another day. I just thank God for letting me live through another day to see another sunset. I can list all the places in the world I want to see just to see the sunsets but right now I have to rush home to sleep peacefully and start a new day.