Sightings on the Edge of the World, #2: Tonight's Sky

The sun had already set when I walked to the cliffs above the ocean tonight, and the crowds had dispersed.  Only a few people lingered, and the path felt empty.  The sky was steel blue and cloudy; the ocean shimmered an even darker blue.   The sand was damp brown.  It was quiet.  And right where the sun had set was a glowing red line.  As I walked along the line of the horizon, the red deepened and broadened and layered up under and through the blue like ripples on water. 

Down on the beach, a little white dog stretched out on the sand, belly down, legs out, as the surf came right up to it.  A few feet in front of the dog, little birds skittered about, following the edge of the water.  The dog's person walked along between them.  A lone surfer was bobbing out in the waves.   Some kind of boat moved further out along the horizon.

A mountain had mysteriously appeared above the ocean, piercing the clouds--a big, solid dark blue mountain where usually there was only sky. 

By the time I turned to go home, a thin layer of opal yellow filtered through marking the line between sea and sky.  Red and blue rippled up through layers of clouds, and the blue mountain stood firm.

Both the beginning and the end of my walk were marked by a most unusual sight:  a young, tall, thin, extremely pale Asian woman wearing a long black duster coat and black unzipped ankle boots with thin white socks and a huge bright red backpack that ran from above her head to the bottom of her hips.  It was the color of the sunset.

On my way out to sea, she was slowly walking in toward the street, and on my way home, she was trotting back out to the cliffs, running almost on tiptoe, with her long coat flapping around her.  Maybe she’s camping out on the sky mountain now.