Red lights snaking, sashaying in a curious sort of S-shape along the parched black pavement, everything ahead looked like glowing embers on the asphalt’s dying fires.  The sky was a rainbow of dusk, from reds to oranges and greens and the bluest of blues overhead, peppered with stars.  The sun was in its last hurrah, a tiny pad of light left peeking from between two hills in the distance, a red eye turned onto a world gone chilly.

            I was driving, my tiny car pulling eighty along the interstate.  Sailing past semis, I could see every inch of twilight bursting forth from behind hills and trees.  The onslaught of night was apparent, a welcome sort of embrace from night to all us weary travelers, our eyes still burning from the glare of the angry evening sun.

            A pile of brush was burning out its goodbyes beside the road, and I had to drink it up with my eyes—framed in red sky fading to green and blue, the embers were glowing red and orange between charred branches.  In the distance, trees disappeared into blackness, dark overtaking the mangled forest.  I sighed.

            Driving on, the red snake glowered at me, taunting me to find such beauty ever again among the pack, daring me to find nirvana in exhaust fumes and gas station corn dogs.  I smiled, my foot firmly on the gas pedal.  Laying back into the momentum of leaving, I let night wash over me and drag me on toward the little red x marked on the map unfolded in the seat next to me.