Just A Small Town Girl…

Head in hands, elbows planted on the mahogany frame of his bedroom window, he gazes laxly into the distance. It’s a Saturday in early Autumn and it’s 6.32pm.

Pink, yellow, orange and purple flecks have been smeared across a bluey canvas, dotted with little clouds – almost like an afterthought.

The sweet sound of birds chirping tickles his ears, they’re playing hide and seek deep within the neighbours’ sycamore trees, he’s certain of it.

He notices the shadowy outline of foliage and flats beyond the garden wall and takes a second just to breathe. To breathe in the cool, quiet, calmness of the moment. He hasn’t felt such peace in a very long time.

Further ahead, the twinkling yellowy car lights are starting to illuminate the roads. The sound of the birds has been replaced by the nostalgic din of the local ice cream van. The ice cream van that he’s never again seen past the age of 12, but always seems to hear around this time on Saturday evenings.

People are beginning to switch their house lights on now, one by one. But he’s been distracted by something else from the corner of his eye. A tiny bright beacon is on a steady ascent through the clouds. I wonder where that plane is headed to he wonders, reminiscing momentarily about his last overseas trip: Naples in mid-August.

It’s 6.44pm now. The myriad of colours have been swirled together to form a greyish shade of violet that’s slowly engulfing the whole sky.

I’ve travelled the world, he thinks to himself, but I’ve still never seen a sunset as beautiful as the one I can see from my bedroom window.