“Sunset in Tahiti”

“We were all perfectly at peace, lying there watching as the sun began to set. The horizon was striped with alternating bands of vermilion and gold leaf. A swath of poppy red formed a sort of nebular spaceship directly in front of us. The forested hills in the distance looked like a child’s irregular cutout on black paper. The trunks of distant palms resembled dark snakes and their fronds, multilegged spiders. The ocean smoothed and darkened so that it might have been rolled asphalt still in its liquid state. Now the ocean was just a slightly lighter tint than the black beach. A ribbon of water on our left suddenly caught the light of the sinking sun and got transformed into red-hot lava. An immense peace descended on the scene. Nature was settling us with her majestic, gently moaning lullaby.”