Sunset!
Created | Updated Apr 26, 2008
Picture this. It's a warm summer evening and you're just coming back towards the village, walking briskly. The sun is a huge, shimmering orange-red ball, sinking towards the horizon. You stop opposite a gap in the hedge to admire this astonishing spectacle of nature. And as you stand there, awe struck, soaking in the splendour, it appears to expand, brighten and hurtle towards you at an alarming speed.
A moment's consideration informs you that the sunset you've been watching has masked a more sinister event: a meteor strike. You stand for another moment, indecisive, transfixed - like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Then you start running for home. Even as you run in terror, you're aware that your effort to escape the inevitable conflagration is futile. There's nowhere to hide. The walls of your house will not protect you. The thing is just too huge: a fabulous crimson nightmare that fills the whole western quarter of the sky, moving at the speed of light, blasting all before it.
You can't help running though. It's not something you can fight. You can only run. It's a primal instinct that drives you. Otherwise, you might drop dead from fear.
But as your legs are pumping, heart pounding, lungs struggling for air, the front part of your brain throws up a thought. You try to suppress the rising sense of panic in order to give this thought some attention. The thought is this: it makes no difference now. Here or at home, you're already as good as dead. The infernal fire-ball is moving too fast. You'll never make it in any case. The sensible thing would be to stop here and watch this once-in-a-life-time show and go out in a blaze of glory.
So you stop running and climb to the top of the bank and settle down to watch the greatest show on Earth. Only, the hot wind has dropped. There's a final flare of red-gold brilliance and the fields at the edge of the world appear to boil. Then the sun's power is swallowed by the horizon.
That was a killer sun-set: a light-show to die for - and you thought you were going to. You walk home on a cushion of air, just above the ground. Stunned, moved, changed. You're more alive inside than you were before.
A moment's consideration informs you that the sunset you've been watching has masked a more sinister event: a meteor strike. You stand for another moment, indecisive, transfixed - like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Then you start running for home. Even as you run in terror, you're aware that your effort to escape the inevitable conflagration is futile. There's nowhere to hide. The walls of your house will not protect you. The thing is just too huge: a fabulous crimson nightmare that fills the whole western quarter of the sky, moving at the speed of light, blasting all before it.
You can't help running though. It's not something you can fight. You can only run. It's a primal instinct that drives you. Otherwise, you might drop dead from fear.
But as your legs are pumping, heart pounding, lungs struggling for air, the front part of your brain throws up a thought. You try to suppress the rising sense of panic in order to give this thought some attention. The thought is this: it makes no difference now. Here or at home, you're already as good as dead. The infernal fire-ball is moving too fast. You'll never make it in any case. The sensible thing would be to stop here and watch this once-in-a-life-time show and go out in a blaze of glory.
So you stop running and climb to the top of the bank and settle down to watch the greatest show on Earth. Only, the hot wind has dropped. There's a final flare of red-gold brilliance and the fields at the edge of the world appear to boil. Then the sun's power is swallowed by the horizon.
That was a killer sun-set: a light-show to die for - and you thought you were going to. You walk home on a cushion of air, just above the ground. Stunned, moved, changed. You're more alive inside than you were before.
