Sneaky Sunset

In the mid-summer of 2013 at Uigshader, near Portree, which is at the same latitude as the southern suburbs of Gothenburg, I watched the sun setting over the Outer Hebrides, leaving a pink glow as I went to bed about midnight. For some unknown reason I got up and looked out through the window at about 2 a.m. and noticed that the pink glow hadn't disappeared below the horizon but was still there, only it had moved so that it was silhouetting the Trotternish Hills to the north. The sunset hadn't set; it was journeying eastwards, via the north. It seemed as if the sunset was hiding behind the hills and sneeking towards the east where it intended to ambush and disable the sunrise before it rose, and to take its place, fulfilling a lifelong ambition of becoming a rising star and monopolizing the entire sun setting-rising market.