SunSet

 The sun was setting low over the mechanized horizon, glistening on the metallic and glass arms of man reaching toward space. The low blood red sun sinking through the haze of smog, turning it a deep orange streaking with yellows and reds in the backwater of the jets that never ceased to corrode the silence of the skies. Plumes of thick heavy gray smoke rose gravely into the beyond with a thin streak of rosy light from the setting sun accenting its malicious ascent.

A man reaches the roof of the building winded, but zealous and eager. A close-by sky-scraper looms before him. Brilliant pinks and oranges play on its normally pale facade of hewn stone and hot glass. A thousand reflections of the same radiant sunset all staring him in the face, towering above him, and sinking far below him. With a slight hop, he stood on the ledge and stared down at the misery and black he knew so well. The exhaust of humanity rose up to him like a warm noxious breeze, and kissed his face softly, like an old friend. All around him were the bloody colors of the sun, and the haunting presence of painful memories.