Outrunning sunset

The sun sets suddenly here. It slips behind a mountain ridge long before it sinks below the true horizon with a watercolor parade of dissolution. If a lone jogger on the old railroad line, squinting westward in the late afternoon, turns back at this moment, she will see the sunlit eastern hills before her, and a line of shadow racing toward them. In the act of turning she'll have missed the shadow passing over her head. And should she try to chase it, propel herself back into day, she'll find it’s not possible. As she sprints, lungs full of the air of gladly dying leaves, the shadow races up the hills like a kite catching wind. By the time she's given up, catching only her breath, colors speak only gray and she needs electricity to find the way in. Nightfall here is not the slow darkening of tea into hot water; it’s instant coffee. There is no outrunning sunset, only a furious sprint into dark.