Sunset, Thursday, 30 April 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

The rain was about to end, a problem because no one had been able to figure out what made it rain in the first place. The weather was confusing. Could have been a massive collision between swine flu and the Supreme Court. First-time unemployment claims were known to contribute to the formation of clouds. God knows, we needed the rain – another theory.

If the sky was so dark, how could the woods be so bright? Perhaps it was like the buzzing in those cheap rheostats in an IKEA lamp – you try to turn the light down, not only does the indicator light come on, the whole thing starts humming like an interstate highway in the middle distance. Sky down, woods up.

Some feared the trees might be turning into paint – which later proved true.

On the twenty-fifth rainy day, contests were held in elementary schools asking how many different kinds of gray could be seen in the sky. The winner identified more than three hundred distinct variations, including blue, yellow, and red.