The Sunset
Category C: Highly Commended (2023) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Iain H. McLean
The two men were sitting at the same round table they always did. It was wedged in the back corner of the bar between the door to the toilets and the dartboard that nobody used anymore. One leg of the table had lost the brass ferrule that acted like a shoe which made the table wobble so it was always available. The melamine veneer had faded with the years so much that it was more salmon pink than the bold red it once was. But it wasn’t chipped. It harked back to the days of smoking and drinking and wedging betting slips under the ashtray. There was a burn mark near the centre where a long time ago a cigarette had fallen from the ashtray. Someone had probably thought to throw it out but never got that far so it had been forgotten and left in the corner. It was just big enough for two people with two glasses of beer. Nobody smoked anymore. He liked the way the burnt melamine felt under his fingernail. It harked back to a different time. It had survived.
“There was an offshore breeze, but it wasn't much of a sunset,” he said.
“What were you expecting?” The words filtered through his fingers as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he took another drink, waited, then wiped again.
“I don't know. More.”
“More what, exactly?”
“More sunset.”
They drank in silence.
Then he continued, “Sure, there were people on the hill. Some sat on the rocks amongst the Saltbush and Pigs Face, a few on the breakwater. All watching the sky waiting. But it didn't light up the sky like a fire.”
“What, you mean all fire and aglow with the passions of the world?”
“Yes, I think," he said. “They just sort of disappeared without leaving. Like the sun.”
“So? What did you do?”
“I decided to have a pint then go home and read a book.”
“Then you would never see the sunset. You want to just see this wonderful life. To see a wonderful life you have to live one.” He drank. “And that means you’ve got to have all the failures that hold up the wonder.”
“But I saw those people. Not the pagans on the hill. The ones sitting by themselves on rocks at the edge of the water. They didn't look like they were living. None of them were smiling.”
“Why not?”
“How should I know?” He watched the man staring into his beer, like the answer would float up. “I waited and watched them where the canal empties into the bay, right there next to the hill,” he continued as the man held his glass firm. Even though the man was sitting at the table he was far away. “They looked like they wanted the bay to wash them away.”
“Maybe they did.” The man waved his empty glass, “another one?”
“Why not?” He drained his glass and handed over the empty.
They clinked their glasses when the next round arrived. He took another deep drink. They never bought imported beer or beer brewed to sit behind a fancy label. They drank what they had always drank. The same beer their fathers had drank.
“Look at them. All that bloody money. Not like when we were kids. What have they got to be so sad about? What's so bad with their lives that they get to be washed away at sunset and we have to put up with all this again, day after day?”
“Because you can walk down the breakwater again tomorrow evening and watch the sky set on fire. Once they drown in self-pity there's nothing left for them.” The man pulled a packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. “Want one?”
“Given up again.”
“Again?” The man laughed himself into a hacking cough, the capillaries in his face bursting as the cough developed. He stood up, clutching the table for a support, looking at it. "Back in two shakes.”
The man navigated past the bar and its patrons to the front door. He stood on the side of. the road, his feet in the gutter, to keep out of the line of people walking past, and he lit up a cigarette. He blew vertical plumes of smoke by craning his head back until it rested between his shoulder blades. While he blew smoke he looked up at the darkening night sky. There were no stars, just blackness and the damp gathering of the night’s dew.
A young couple sitting at a table outside the bar underneath a canvas parasol turned away from him. He tried to smile at them. When he finished he returned to his stool by the small table and drank deeply, wiping his mouth with his hand.
“You know what happened at the sunset tonight?”
“What?”
“When I was halfway back from the breakwater, after everyone had started leaving, the streetlights turned on by themselves. Then the sky just lit up like it was on fire under the horizon, but you couldn't see it. All we could see was the reflection of the flames in the clouds.”
“Beautiful isn't it?” The man poured the dregs into his mouth, put the empty glass on the table, and stared at it. “Another one?”
“I've got to get home. She'll be wondering where I've got to,” he said.
They sat in a moment of easy silence.
“It was a beautiful sunset,” he continued. “It went on forever.”
“It does that.”
“Does what?”
“Creeps up on you. Nature. It knows you're watching. So it waits. It's got all the time in the world. You've only got a blip in comparison. And even then you rush about everywhere. So it waits. And when you're not looking it does something amazing.”
Both men stared into the bar, at the couples talking, the men wearing business shirts getting agitated and the group of young kids laughing.
“Funny isn't it. All those people, running, walking, talking on phones. And they're oblivious,” he said.
“You know how it happened?”
“How?”
“I was the only one left. Just me as a stray dog that walked past and sat near me. We watched the sunset together. Everyone else had gone.”
“See you again tomorrow?”
“Probably not. Think I'll be walking the breakwater,” he said.
“You know what? I don't blame you.” He turned and left first, lighting another cigarette as he left. He walked home to an empty house, took a can of beer from the fridge, turned on the television and watched a program about a man on the other side of the planet, sailing a dinghy around the British Isles by himself.