As I turned around to leave, I caught a peripheral glimpse of something moving in the water. I turned back and saw a school of enormous red fish heading in my direction at a leisurely pace, right beside the pier. (The schools of little fries that hang out near the piers always swim around aimlessly – these big guys were heading straight ahead, confident.) I followed alongside them, watching. And again, I wanted to point them out to whoever might be around.
The thin cloud break in the west was still lit up a fading gray-orange well after sunset. The shape and texture of the dark blank cloud was unreadable. No point of reference. If I hadn’t seen it before sunset, that dim chunk of negative space would have looked like a strip of cloud stretched across a starless night sky.