Short Story: Like The Sunset

Short Story: Like The Sunset

That she had to wait at the airport in Cabo for hours was not as painstaking to Sasha as was standing there, alone, in the midst of a crowd that was moving past her with mountains of luggage, people wearing fashionable sunglasses – men with unbuttoned shirts, beautiful women in floweresque dresses, pearls clinking with every movement and breath inhaled. She could recall each night she had spent in front of her computer, Googling, searching, hunting, for every little piece of information that would bring him closer to her – for a moment, at least. She felt him near, always.

He was a celebrity, without doubt. At times it seemed impossible that a day would come when she would actually get to meet an A-list star like himself, that he would be impressed by her ordinariness. That he was, eventually, to fall in love with her. And then she remembered the many nights she spent shedding tears on her pillow, zooming photographs of him walking down the red carpet.

And then she remembered the day she received an email from him. She remembered the feeling of unearthly joy, her heart skipping a beat at the mere thought of times past and those that were to come. He had replied to her email. A year ago she had sent him a poem she had written for him and about him. He liked poetry, recognised truthfulness in it, and replied.

But that he would invite her to meet him, in Cabo, did never ever cross her desperately love-sick mind. She had an awful argument with her parents, and it was no wonder, really. For, regardless of how many times she read them the email he had sent her, inviting her on a fan-meets-celebrity ‘getaway’, the old, middle-class couple that were her parents was still hesitant, suspicious, and at the most, unbelieving. They believed she had fallen in with a bad crowd and was possibly taking drugs.

But the truth was, she was madly in love with a Hollywood star, and as much as she pinched herself every day, she could still not fully believe the fact that she was to finally meet him.

She was sitting on a high stool. From behind her beamed an enormous, expensive villa accessorised with huge dark-green palms and skyscraper fountains that resembled real waterfalls. She sat there, facing the sky and the ocean in front of her – and the sunset.

‘Beautiful sundown, isn’ it?’ he whispered, as he sat down next to her. They both stared at the orange canvas that seemed to transform into a work of finest art. She dared not look at him, for her heart went ecstatic.

‘I never really knew the true purpose of life, if this is what I truly want,’ he stated absent-mindedly. She blinked half-franticly, half-emphatically.

‘But,’ he went on, ‘I found trueness in your poem.’

‘Purpose,’ he added. ‘Like the sunset.’

They looked infinitely at it, the orange canvas that promised to give them purpose, to make them art.