Unnatural Beauty

I'm watching the sunset from the Academic Center, wishing desperately I had my camera with me. It looks the mental image will have to suffice. But I can't let this pass without recording it some more permanent way that my wayward mind. So, in italics below (to be dramatic) is the sunset as it stands at just past eight on the last night I'll have schoolwork in Athens, on the last Wednesday in Greece and possibly the last sunset I'll watch from the Academic Center. Man, those heartstrings are humming.

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Directly overhead, the sky is clear, the limp blue that temporarily overtakes the sky when the day is leaving but the night has yet to arrive. Almost seamlessly, as the eye drops down, the blue starts greying as thin clouds inflitrate the pale blue and eventually overtakes it completely. The blue overhead gives way to a grey front (with just a hint of violet if you look at it the right way. Then, suddenly the clouds grow a warm orange, with stripes of sunbeam painting their underside. The cloud mass ends suddenly and the sky is daytime blue and the air feels warmer just for seeing that patch of sky. It is just a patch, an opening no more than fifteen degrees with clouds above and below and the sun fleeing out of the gap for all its worth. Below the opening is the bottom piece of the sunlight sandwich, hiding the actual sun behind a thick, dark mass. But below that the sky opens again and shines a pumpkin orange for no reason in particular.

Ten minutes later:

My retinas have been seared by this deceptively warm sun too many times now. Up to the right, the clouds have stretched thinner like cotton just before it rips. The lowest part of the horizon is a reddening orange dust that wraps its arms around the dark Acropolis. Funny, the sun used to set to the left of the Acropolis and now sets its full length to the right of the building. In the blue and gray above a contrail widens. Much higher than the clouds, it's catching the sun's full rays, shining a neon white. The higher clouds have a more visible purple peeking out and the patch has lost all its sunrays, just a dull, dimming blue.

Five minutes later:

The sun plummeted behind the horizon with incredible speed. No matter how many times it happens, I never cease to be amazed. As its power weakens, the orange band just above the skyline shows the jagged edges of the underbellies of distant clouds, the uniform blazing dusty color replaced by bright defined edges and sudden shadows. The contrail's path overhead has wavered at the whim of the win, stretching fat and thin. The clouds around it are fragmenting into strange dark shapes, contrasting strongly against the baby blue pastel of the cloudless parts of the sky. Now the sky has gone into the long slow decline. The colors will darken and deepen and fall away along the familiar spectrum. It's spent and happily tired, having stunned me again with a show unlike anything ever put on. That much is unbelievable but true: I've seen the sun go down from this balcony most of the days I've been in Athens. Yet I remain petrified with awe at its capacity to innovate and produce colors and patterns unlike anything I've seen anywhere in the world. I'm sitting on a bean bag, desperately trying to capture the moment. In front of me, Jack Kerouac (as he has been dubbed) pounds away at an overdue philosophy paper on his laptop. I'm about to pound away at an overdue history paper. Hyde and Kurt are crouched on the couch inside sipping on pounders and watching the Red Sox game over the internet. What a world. One last note: the spotlights on the Acropolis are coming on just points of light at the moment, but soon the timeless Parthenon will be awash in a brilliant bath, the sky overhead will retreat into the darkness that the metropolis below permits, and I'll walk home, finished with my final paper and one day closer to departing Athens.

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Pictures from travels below. Enjoy.