The immanent dark

everyone had known it was coming, only, only no one had expected it so soon

I wasn't sure if I should turn around or keep going but the red glow blinded me. The valley was bathed in the brilliant glow of the sun’s slow death.

This was it, the moment we had predicted, everyone had known it was coming, only, only no one had expected it so soon. Millions of years you’ll have, the scientists said, maybe even billions they said. In school every child learned about the sun’s eventual death as a far off thing. Something to stand in awe and reverence of, but never to fear. Each of us would sit huddled around our tables and whisper about how cool it would be to see that day, minus the dying part that is. But now that I saw it before me, an actuality being fully realized, all anticipation of the event leached out of me. The temperature had started to drop, like it did in the evening, only the sun still hung high above the earth, its colour darkening with every passing minute. It would never be warm again. I thought of the sun's rays caressing my skin, the way it felt to lie on the porch in the mornings and I felt my throat close up.

Why was this happening?? I found myself asking again and again and again. Why?

No scientist could explain this phenomena, this defiance of every natural law known to man.

But here I was, at the edge of the world, watching darkness fall on a world never to know the light again.

Photo by Bryan Goff on Unsplash