The Horizon
/By Nikolaas Vega
The twilight dipped the curtain of the backdrop behind the skyline, and the sun revealed its head afterwards. Having been through a bumpy voyage lasted for nearly fifteen hours yesterday, Allen and Larry, who are now in this cruise ship named ‘The Wanderer’, has spent a livelong yet momentary (they had fallen into a deep slumber for more than ten hours) night in the cabin.
‘What a refreshing breeze.’ Allen inhales a deep breath, savouring it attentively while exhaling.
‘It would be no more than skies, seas, and ships adrift, were it not for my honey’s existence,’ Larry leaps out of the cabin behind, twining his arms around Allen’s neck, while brushing against it using stubble on his face.
‘All right, all right, come on!’ he responds that approaching lips with a kiss. Now that they can enjoy the sunrise in focus, they look where the surface is bright scarlet.
‘Do you remember the question we left a month ago?’ asks Allen.
‘What question?’
‘It’s intriguing,’ says Allen, ‘that when we are looking to the same view, we see differently.’
‘We look to the same view, which satisfies me enough, both the fact and the view,’ Larry opens his arms and puts one of them onto his partner’s shoulder. ‘This half-concealed sun is so exhilarating, and now its lower body is separating from the surface; oh, it starts to become effulgent. Do you see any difference, Allen?’
‘Well. We see the same sun, the same clouds and skies, but between you and me, only one of us sides with Magellan.’
‘I remember that name, a navigator if I recall it right?’
‘Correct. It’s him who discovered this secret: conflict with the received view at that time, the ground beneath our feet is a giant spheroid. As I said before, on this topic about the shape of the earth, I would expound it to you someday. Look, the horizon which radiates as a filament is just as a marginal halo generated by the sun covered in the moon, whose spectacular we once witnessed in our special trip to Greenland…’
‘That’s when we’re in high school, of course I remember, for these are memories I treasure very much. You were wayward to throw a temper tantrum, insisting to go to Grace High School that’s far away from home, to STUDY with me. You mom told me about this afterwards, and asked me to take care of you.’
‘It’s because, you know, that’s a school with better fields and training facilities, so in no way was I to expect you to come to a mediocre one near my home. But, attention, please. I’m talking about the halo. How distractible you are all the time! That arcuate halo, irradiated by an illuminant sphere (the sun), is like the curved horizon gleaming (the ray gets brighter now)–Behold, it’s a curved line.’ Allen holds Larry’s arm with his palm and squeezes it several times. A brisk zephyr has been whirring through the ship, bantering with a bunch of violet hyacinths on the wooden end table outside.
‘That being said, the surface of the sea is curved, ah, I feel now it protuberant. Actually, I have never noticed that before.’
‘But,’ he continues, ‘what if it’s caused merely by illusion?’
‘Alas, you sceptical, little fool.’ He pokes his opponent on the head with a finger. ‘Certainly, when staring at a place for long, one could experience hallucination as if “surroundings are melting gradually”, however, we’ve been here only for a while, let alone your eyeballs move agilely than Fluffy (their pet dog) all the time. Hmm, you clever little boy may presume if it has something to do with matters above the earth, say, atmosphere and so on. I should point out that when sunlight reaches the ground, the sea, and where we are standing, it has then nothing to do with the above!’
‘Incredible.’He takes a glance at the guardrail with the head down, shaking his head, ‘We have evolved, and been reproducing on a big ball on and on. It’s a bit funny thinking of this: those politicians, warmongers, business moguls are just like us, as clowns in a circus.’
‘Have you planned where to go next, my clown?’
‘Coast of Mexico, or up to the north where we could enjoy the pure winter? Wherever you want to go, I’ll follow, as before.’
‘We’ve got some time to make this decision,’ says Allen while stretching his legs and feet.
The red ball, which just glimmered with its head buried below the horizon, has now wholly separated from the level, hanging on in the middle of the pale-blue background and its dispersed clouds. And the sea wind touches the surface, rustling, limpidly and melodiously. A whiff of aroma mingled with sea salt and barbecue comes over, reminding the teacher and the student of a break; and then, the deck restores its tranquillity, along with the departure of that red-and-white buoy, which, bit by bit, formed into a shape resembling a morning glory, and eventually, dissolves in where the skyline and the sea merge altogether.
