False Horizon

Caroline had walked past the lighthouse every day since arriving on the Cape, once in the morning, once in the evening, in stifling heat or now, as September sent announcements of fall, in a breeze cool enough to demand a sweater. She had seen the full range, from cotton ball cumulus, to dark nimbostratus to the wisps of cirrus of today. But, although she was certain it must have put in an appearance before, Caroline could not recall ever seeing a low line across the sky that looked so much like a horizon. She even imagined a difference in the color of the sky above and below the line. No doubt her imagination attempting to make sense of the unusual. That is what we do with the unusual, isn’t it? Try to make sense of what we see. Try to fit things in to the patterns we know. There was something unnerving about a horizon in that particular location. It was too high, and even though she knew it was an illusion, Caroline could feel her stomach wrestling like a wobbly gyroscope with it’s need to have what she had seen fit into the proper slot.