The Sunsets are All the Same

Gramps was pacing in the other room. I could hear the slap of his shoes against the bare stone floor. Grit crunched under his feet every time he changed direction. Grandma and I were trying to get ready for the presentation as quickly as possible. The pacing wasn’t helping.

“Come on, ladies, it’s not like makeup’s been in style for the past forty years. Could we get a move on, please?” I could hear the huff in his voice. So could grandma. She set her lips in a grim line and shook her head. Her patience was about at its end.

“We’re almost ready, gramps. The presentation won’t start for another thirty minutes.” I said loudly enough so he could hear me in the other room. His hearing was continuing to get worse.

“I know, Heather. I just want to get a seat in front. I have questions for the team.” He said.

I slid back the curtain, our little barrier separating the two cramped rooms. “Don’t worry, we’ll be there in plenty of time. Besides, the council said you could ask the first question.”

“Yeah, but you know how they can be when they want to keep to a timetable.” The pacing continued.

A loud crash came from behind me. “Harold Donne, what in god’s earth have you done now.” Grandma stormed past the curtain, waving her brush. Her face was turning that deep crimson color it did when she was mad. Not the irritated type of mad, the downright pissed-off mad. I caught her by the shoulders before she could reach him.

“What do you mean, Laurie?” He bowed his head painting his face with the most innocent look he could muster.

Grandma’s brush shook in her clinched fist. “You clipped the bristles again. Dammit, Harold, you keep this up I won’t have a brush at all.”

“Gramps, you promised you wouldn’t do that again.” I said, trying so hard to keep from smiling while directing my best scowl his way.

“Well, I needed to make a new paint brush.” He said.

“You and your damned watercolors.” Grandma turned and stormed back into the other room, nearly removing the curtain from the rod.

“I thought you had given up on painting after the last expedition?” I asked with arms folded.

“Hopefully they bring back a few pictures this time. Conditions have to be improving on the surface.” He removed his old notebook from his pocket and dropped down on the threadbare couch.

I rubbed his shoulder and set about looking for my shoes. The last time a team had returned from the surface was five years ago. The team had recorded winds of eighty miles an hour and dust so thick you couldn’t see further than a few hundred meters. That news had put gramps in a depression for weeks.

Sadly, these spats between my grandparents were getting worse. I guess forty years of living in a root cellar, as gramps liked to call it, would do that to a relationship. My grandparents were two of the last survivors to be moved from the surface during the relocation of 2068.

After finding my shoes I plopped down on the couch next to him. His expression was a little brighter. He was staring at a small, notebook sized card. I snuggled up close so I could see what had his attention. It was one of his old watercolor paintings. A sunset, his favorite. The painting was a wash of reds, oranges and purples. Violet, gramps would always say. Purple is not a color. The paper was worn, and the image was so faded it was barely perceivable. But gramps loved it anyway. “This is the only one they’d let me bring when we moved into the cave. ‘No room for nonessentials’ they said.” He gently pressed his cheek against my forehead.

Our history lessons taught us that in 2042, the moon was designated humanity’s new dumping ground. Environmental conditions on earth had become so bad, governments and corporations the world over were forced to ship their garbage off planet. Everything was shuttled up, including nuclear waste. Apparently, the process wasn’t regulated very well and several hundred million tons of a nasty, volatile chemical was stored without anyone knowing. Well, except for the people who put it there.

In the sixties, relations with China and Russia started warming up again. And, without public knowledge, all three superpowers started testing nuclear weapons on the moon. On July 9th, 2068, somebody — no one ever admitted to it — tested several weapons at once. The resulting explosions reacted with the volatile chemicals no one knew about, and the moon cracked like an egg. Shattered into a billion of pieces, the moon was soon forming a ring around the earth’s equator.

Besides the chaos caused by the shifting tides, several large pieces of the moon touched down. Overnight the world was thrown into a global winter. Billions of tons of debris thrown miles into the atmosphere. Most plant and animal life soon died. Government scientists estimated it would be weeks before humans would start dying from dust inhalation, even with special equipment and habitats.

By the end of that year, those who could be saved were sealed inside underground cities. Billions died; millions were saved. That was forty years ago.

“How do you define nonessential? Living without the things we love is not really living, it’s existing.” He said, “I think that’s why your grandmother has become such an old hag.”

“You don’t think it has anything to do with turning her hairbrush into a painting utensil?” I smiled and looked up into his eyes. There was a twinkle there; he knew what he’d done.

“What’s so bad about wanting to paint another sunset or two before I drop by the wayside?”

Grandma could hear the conversation from the next room. She picked that moment to interject. “I just wish you were a little more practical. My god, man, look at the living conditions. We’re dirty, cold. How many died last year from pneumonia alone. You were once a brilliant engineer, and now sunsets are all you have on the brain.”

“Haven’t I contributed enough to our survival?” Gramps’s face was turning red, not uncommon when this subject came up. “Wasn’t I the one who designed and built the hydroponics lighting system? Wasn’t I the one who trained all those snotnosed gofers out there to keep this place running? Wasn’t I? I’ll tell ya what, painting sunsets all those years is what kept me going. And if you think . . .”

“Gramps, we're going to be late if you keep yelling at grandma.” I said, giving him a gentle nudge.

“She started it.” The color of his face returned to normal, but there was still a twinkle in his eye. He couldn’t wait to hear about the surface. And sunsets.

I led both grandparents by the hand through the cramped, subterranean tunnels. The smell of clay and earth was worse where water had puddled on the floor. Gramps held his notebook tight. Grandma watched the ceiling. She always worried about the ceilings.

Gramps broke away when we entered the auditorium. He rushed for the benches in the front row. The auditorium was only large enough to hold a thousand people, about a quarter of Trinity’s population. Most folks would watch elsewhere from a video feed. Some, who worked the night shift, would most likely be sleeping. Some just didn’t care. Depression was becoming a serious problem in Trinity. Gramps patted the bench with his hand, indicating I should take a seat next to him.

Finally, the lights dimmed and the scientific team that had trekked out onto the surface a week ago took the stage. The presentation was brief, with a video and a few photos. The earth’s surface had warmed by a few degrees and sunlight now registered forty-eight percent of pre-event conditions. That was less than half the amount of sunlight that had reached the earth’s surface before the moon’s crash. But it was also an increase of twelve percent recorded by the last expedition.

The gist of the presentation; we’ll try again in five years. I could feel the life drain from my gramps. He wanted to visit the surface so badly.

The lights came up and the team leads, Doctors Urey and Pegram stepped to the leading edge of the stage. Doctor Urey asked for questions. Gramps’s hand flew into the air. Doctor Urey took a deep breath and pointed to gramps. “Yes, Doctor Donne.”

“Thank you, Doctors Urey and Pegram, for the wonderful presentation. It was very thorough, and I have only one additional question. I had requested images. Were you able to capture those images?” His voice was energetic and projected toward the stage. His excitement made me smile.

A shadow fell over Doctor Urey’s face as he turned to the young scientist operating the laptop. The auditorium lights dimmed once again as a new image lit up the screen. This one looked like day-old mustard smeared over a glass slide.

Doctor Urey turned to face gramps. He looked like death was tapping him on the shoulder. “I regret that this was the only image I could capture, doctor. As you can see the dust is still far too thick for a sunset to be photographed. I’m sorry.”

“You were up there for five days. You couldn’t capture additional photos?” He held back the disappointment, but I knew it was there.

“I’m sorry, doctor. I saw no need. The sunsets all look like this.” Urey was having difficulty making eye contact with gramps.

I felt heat rise up the back of my neck. Gramps had done amazing things for Trinity and all he had asked for was a few photos. Surely, he deserved more than this.

Gramps’s mouth hung open like a dried up well. Doctor Urey searched the auditorium for another question, attempting to look anywhere except at gramps. I studied Urey’s face looking for some explanation for his cruelty. Gramps just wanted a few sunset photos. Not a big ask.

Doctor Pegram took the next question.

Urey glanced in our direction. He looked uncomfortable, even pained. As I watched, I realized what I saw was sympathy. He knew how much this request meant to my gramps. That’s when I realized Urey felt guilty because he couldn’t honor the request. The back of my neck cooled. It was what it was. A dead world without a sunset.

I watched gramps surrender to the depression again. He had attempted another watercolor painting using clay to create the yellow and red pigments. It wasn’t long before he grew frustrated with the process. I asked him about it when I had found the painting in the garbage. He didn’t answer.

He passed away in his sleep a few days later.

I cried. Grandma didn’t. I guess forty years of living in the earth had made her tougher than she thought. She went about her life just as if she would’ve if gramps were still alive. A few months later she didn’t wake up either.

Within five months after that god awful presentation, I had to bury my last two family members. The last two people who’d ever seen a sunset. I hung that old, faded painting of gramps’s above my bed. It was the only way I could honor him.

It was another ten years and two more expeditions before scientists were allowed to live on the surface. Leslie Groves and I received a grant to build a hydroponics garden. Sunlight now registered nearly sixty-five percent of pre-event normal. With the help of hydroponics lighting and a reinforced greenhouse, we were able to plant a half-acre of corn. It was growing well and tasted so much better than the crops grown in the caves. We’re hoping to receive another grant for an additional greenhouse. We want to grow tomatoes next.

At the end of every day, just as the light begins to fade, I take gramps’s old painting with me to the west side of the greenhouse. I watch as that glowing smudge descends against the yellow ochre sky. I look for the reds, violets and oranges gramps used to paint his favorite watercolor. Intently, I wait for any sign of the beauty and diversity gramps once used to describe this magical time of day. Maybe, someday, the sunsets will capture our admiration once again. One can hope.

But, for now, the sunsets are all the same.

The Sunsets are All the Same. Copyright © 2021+ Jeff Cochran. All Rights Reserved.