The trees all over Kansas City are in bloom, and today they were dancing, too, because the wind was blowing hard. It didn’t rain, but there was a wetness in the sky. After class, I parked my car on the street rather than in the garage, and I went into my apartment and stayed there for a couple of hours.
At about seven-thirty, when the sun was going down, I went outside again and the sky was gray and pink and orange, and clouds churned and swirled, damp and heavy. Each individual cloud had its own distinct border.
I looked downhill; the sky had supersaturated the asphalt and grass and concrete. None of the colors I saw seemed normal or real. A guy jogged up the sidewalk. A couple at the end of the street unloaded boxes from a van.
It was a perfect moment and I wanted to freeze it. I knew the sun would go down totally within the next ten minutes, maybe. This moment would disappear and it would never come back again.
I seriously considered going back into my apartment and grabbing my camera and taking some pictures, but there wouldn’t have been much of a point. Cameras take pictures; they can’t take moments. And a picture’s never more than a vague approximation of its subject. And subjects are never permanent. And I guess if they somehow were – if time somehow ceased to exist – then no one would ever need a camera anyway.
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