Somebody threw a match into a field of violet wild flowers. The flames burned pink and slowly moved across the petals, kissing and tickling them. As they moved over the field, the flames left ochre ashes glowing with heat. Ever so slowly, naturally, the fire spread, dancing atop the field of violet.
The fire soon found an aspen grove caught in the radiant metamorphosis of autumn. Clutching the aspens, the fire exploded into rolling columns of flame, tossing the changing leaves into the sky, blanketing the earth in illuminant, lively light. Each burning aspen leaf, of which there were billions, was sent tumbling, turning and glittering among the others. The acrobatics were stunning. The mass of surging and ebbing leaves, burning red, orange, pink and yellow looked like a colossal school of brightly colored fish darting through the deep blue sea; like someone breathed life into a collection of shattered, stained glass and then lifted it in front of an evening sun.
South, in the distance, the sea overflowed. But rather than spill out over the earth, it grew vertically, swelling over the tops of snow capped peaks. It did not advance, nor retreat. It held its firm position, towering in the distance, swallowing the light emitted by the fire in the foreground. The light was lost in a blue that grew steadily darker, deeper and ultimately abysmal.
With the spread of the wind and the inevitable fatalism of time, the fire began to dissipate. It became brush strokes inspired by Van Gogh. The color did not loose its intensity but did become cooler. Apparently the artist who brushed these strokes into the blue canvas had not decided whether he preferred oils or acrylic. At first the paint held the form of the violent strokes, where the bristles carved the paint into intertwining lines that ended in independent, fading color. But then, as if operating with a mind of their own, the firm lines would begin to bleed through the canvas. The colors would drip and mix into themselves always maintaining their independence among the other colors, yet wanting to blend and share their luminance at the same time. The burning colors fervently explored one another in tumultuous curiosity.
The strokes were nonsensical, erratic. They randomly cut at the canvas like the artist painted with a handful of shattered glass rather than with a brush. The cuts bled like flesh does. Then the artist added strange form among the macabre, bloody background. It wasn't quite an addition, because it had been there the whole time. Rather, he brought attention to the forms, a Dali-esque profile in the center, a cold grey clump of cauliflower left in the distance. The artist was psychotic, a serial killer perhaps. He loved massacre, medieval war, slaughterhouses.
It was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen. And it scared me to death. It was true madness. I laughed out loud at it. Then, I was completely silent, like a frightened child in a pitch black room. I was too frightened to breath and hoped to wake up from the nightmare that was that sunset. It foretold of terror, of irreversible change, of heartbreak. It portended doom, apocalypse even. I tried to laugh at it again, but no noise escaped from my throat. I couldn't look at it any longer. I curled up beneath it and hid my head.
Hours later, a lifetime maybe, or seconds, I lifted my head and the colors were gone. I stood up, looked at the blue black sky and walked out of the mountains. I couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible had happened.
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