The Sunset

 I am upstairs, finishing up, and getting ready to head downstairs and watch the news. I notice, though, an unusual color to the room, as though the sky is beginning to glow. Oddly, the salmon color is mostly to the north, where I observe it through pines, and to the east, where I have an unobstructed view.
 It is odd for the sky to be red in the north. I press my face to the window, look west, and see that it is simply grey, heavily clouded as the entire day has been.
 Then, in a flash, the red color begins to expand, not just in scope but in direction, until the entire sky glows red.
 And then it simply explodes.

January 16, 2013 5:53 pm

 I grab my camera - always at the ready - and I am  running down the steps, terry cloth bathrobe flying behind, and I search for the key to open the back door. I step outside to this: the color has expanded to the west, a breathtaking fire along the undersides of the clouds, streaming gold at the horizon  and an eerie, impossible blue-grey further above. It is as though the sky is cloudy and clear at the same time.
 I take this one picture and then stand there stunned for a whole minute, unable to speak, unable to move. This is a western sunset, one which should have mountains in the distance. And yet I look upon my usual pines, a few deciduous trees and flat farmland that carries as far as the eye can see. This is an impossible sunset for Farmersville.

January 16, 2012 5:54 pm

 I have to wait but a single minute for the colors to peak. The sun is not visible and yet the brightness nearly blinds. It comes from ahead and above. I stand there almost in tears. I am standing beneath molten lava.
 And yet for every red stripe above me, there is an odd corresponding blue-grey. I feel almost as though I must hold onto the ground or be sucked up into the colors.

January 16, 2013 5:55 pm

 Only two minutes have passed since I took my first picture and already the colors begin to fade. Overhead the sky goes cold and grey and the brilliant colors follow the sun over the horizon. It is like watching a waterfall.
 I think: Be always vigilant. Views such as these come and go in an instant.
 As I step back into the house, my robe hardly warm enough for a winter's night, I see the fire dwindling. As I put my shoes away the last ember dies. And yet this brief sunset was one for the books. I don't ever remember a brighter one, one with such odd colors, one with such brilliance.