Don't Call It Night

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AT seven o'clock in the evening, sitting on the balcony of his second-floor apartment, he is watching the departing day, and waiting. What does the last light promise, and what can it deliver?

Below lies an empty garden with a patch of lawn, some oleander bushes, a bench and a neglected bougainvillaea bower. The garden ends in a stone wall marked with the outline of an opening which is blocked with courses of stones that are newer, lighter in colour — in fact, at this moment they even seem slightly lighter in weight than the original stones of the wall. Behind the wall rise two cypress trees. Now, in the evening light, he finds they look black rather than green. Beyond stretch barren hills. That way lies the desert, where, every now and again, a grey eddy whirls up, quivers for a moment, wriggles, sweeps away, subsides. Only to start up somewhere else.

The sky turns grey. There are some still clouds, one of which faintly reflects the glow of the sunset. The setting sun itself is not visible from this balcony. On the stone wall at the end of the garden a bird shrills excitedly, as though it has just discovered something that cannot be bottled up. How about you?

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