The time is fifty five minutes past five in the evening as I descend on to a narrow strip of land leaving behind worldly banalities. This land, the beach is made slim by high tide. No man’s land I decide to call this place, squeezed between two horizons. The edge where sky and ocean meet. This edge is not a thin line; it swallows the sun which is pale pink now. This edge is constant; it has been there for as long as man can remember. The other edge is the city, an ever changing horizon, a horizon subject to human ambition and a product of raw animal power. It is an edge that can be conquered.
The sky is rendered pink and the colour reflects on the pale gray surface of the ocean which has become opaque over time. The sky is clear for the most part, a cloud disintegrates slowly into smaller clusters.
Today, the sun does not meet the horizon. From where I am sitting on the sand, with my heels dug in, I see it decay from a luminous pink circle to a hemisphere with its colours merging with the sky on which it is painted. I see the sun blend into blue and eventually disappear about 35mm above the horizon.
I stare into the horizon. My eye is fascinated by the phenomenon that succeeds sun set. I see the horizon and the sky change colours and tone and merge into a uniform hollow blackness. At this moment, the horizon I cannot see, the line is invisible. No eye can distinguish between the sea and sky when the line which distinguishes these forces of nature has been made vague.
It is this line, I realise as I write that sparked imaginations, inspired generations and helped conquer the world. This is a line that cannot be conquered, has not been conquered, and as long as the ocean is there, will never be conquered.
Starring into the homogenous darkness is a nervous moment. It frightens me. It moves me. It is beautiful. It is powerful.
The horizon defines, but it does not exist!
The sky is rendered pink and the colour reflects on the pale gray surface of the ocean which has become opaque over time. The sky is clear for the most part, a cloud disintegrates slowly into smaller clusters.
Today, the sun does not meet the horizon. From where I am sitting on the sand, with my heels dug in, I see it decay from a luminous pink circle to a hemisphere with its colours merging with the sky on which it is painted. I see the sun blend into blue and eventually disappear about 35mm above the horizon.
I stare into the horizon. My eye is fascinated by the phenomenon that succeeds sun set. I see the horizon and the sky change colours and tone and merge into a uniform hollow blackness. At this moment, the horizon I cannot see, the line is invisible. No eye can distinguish between the sea and sky when the line which distinguishes these forces of nature has been made vague.
It is this line, I realise as I write that sparked imaginations, inspired generations and helped conquer the world. This is a line that cannot be conquered, has not been conquered, and as long as the ocean is there, will never be conquered.
Starring into the homogenous darkness is a nervous moment. It frightens me. It moves me. It is beautiful. It is powerful.
The horizon defines, but it does not exist!
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