A Many-colored Sheet

A sullen sun, tired and heavy, settled on the Locata mountain ridge. It lay there like a man dying, bleeding pastel oranges and pinks out across the cloud streaked sky and down the purple shadows below.

These last moments before night were the most beautiful and Seedy tried to make them last when he could. He'd stared out over the tufts of emu bushes and speckled arms of the palo verdes trees, watching how the clouds moved. Sometimes they barely moved and sometimes they ran fast, like a cattle stampede, changing colors as they fled. If they got too low, the sky would darken and the thunder of their hooves became real.

Today, even though he half-sat in a dry creek bed, the clouds seemed so close he felt he could pluck them, if only he could reach a little further. And they weren't dark at all today. The colors were real pretty, pretty enough to sleep under.

Not a bad place at all.

His body spasmed once as the pain returned. Stinging eyes blurred his vision but he could still see the colors.

Such splendor.