I was walking north, headed towards the river, on S. First Street. I’d just wrapped a reading at Bouldin Creek, and the sun was edging down towards the horizon, brilliant oranges and some purple spread across the sky.
Yawn. “Austin, sunset capital of the world.” Whatever. Sounds like tourist propaganda.
Stonehenge’s riddle solved?
Did I read this correctly?
But get down the hill from the Texas State School for the Deaf, just passed that dry creek bed, and there’s Sandy’s. Long time home of soft-serve ice cream, the “burger-fries-drink” specials, and an aging, out-of-place dining establishment. The flies are thick on hot summer nights as the various dinner guests wolf down the special.
The Sandy’s signage is old-time neon, with orange, red, purple, and lime green in it. The sun wasn’t quite gone. The interplay of colors made me wish, for an instant, that I had one of those super-trick cameras that does everything because the scene was a fleeting glance, but quite powerful. The colors. The signage. The colors in the sky. The colors in the sign.
Like the elusive green flash, though, it was one of those moments that’s gone now. Just a faded memory.
