Sunsets for Sid ~ LittleAshCloud

Sid ran the second hand book shop at the local shopping mall. He was in his mid-twenties, fitly built with deep dark blue eyes and long blonde hair.

I have this terrible curse of not being able to walk past a good bookshop without going in for a decent perusal (I’m not really convinced it’s a terrible curse, but my bank account usually disagrees) And every week or two, I’d meander into the shop, and Sid would offer his assistance and I would always politely decline. We did this dance of offer and refusal without fail time and time again; it seemed a way to bridge an awkward silent attraction between us. I’d wander off into the shelves browsing and he’d sit behind the counter gently strumming on his guitar.

A few months after Sid started working at the shop, I was sitting at a local coffee shop with a friend when my eye caught a familiar face in the crowd that sauntered past us. He’d cut his hair short and respectable and he walked with a new bounce to his step. My gaze followed him as he walked all the way past us until his back nearly squarely to us, he paused and turned around, looked me straight in the eyes, dipped his head slightly, smiled a crooked smile and walk off. Something had told him I was watching. Our souls collided in that instant of a smile, amidst the unwitting shoppers.

After that our awkwardness disappeared, we no longer did our peculiar offer and refusal routine, we started to chat, found we had mutual friends and a very diverse taste in music.

One day he sent me the following message, and it’s made me think of him, every sunset since.
“I was just walking out of work, listening to Nine inch Nails and Tool and there it was, a giant ball of orange fire in a sky of slate blue, red and pink smeared into each other. Don’t worry though there’ll be another one tomorrow and the day after and the day after that, till the end of time. You can’t possibly miss them all. Always alike, but never quite the same. You have a good evening.”

Sid died on the 21st of January 2009 aged 27.

And yet even 9 years later, every sunset I see still reminds me of him and brings a deep smile of remembrance and connection.

This is for you Sid. Thanks for the smiles.

When painters leave this world, we grieve
For the hand that will work no more,
But who can say that they rest always
On that still celestial shore?
No! No! they choose from the rainbow hues,
And winging from Paradise,
They come to paint, now bold now faint,
The tones of our sunset skies.
When I see them there I can almost swear
That grey is from Whistler’s brain!
That crimson flush was Turner’s brush!
And the gold is Claude Lorraine.

William Percy French