Pink Skies

Cold, dreary morning. 

The sky is a strange shade of gray and blue. Not the sad gray of a typical rainy morning and nor the beautiful blue of a July day. I drag myself out of bed to the smells of my mother's cooking going on in the kitchen which hits me even stronger as soon as I am of conscious thought. I don't feel hungry and this worries me. Usually my mother's cooking makes me drool and specially after starving the night it should be worse.. and yet no. I am stumbling around in my Pooh night-shirt, running my tongue over my newly brushed teeth and wondering what clothes to wear.

The sky is a lighter shade of gray now.

I get frustrated as I run out of choices for clothes. Finally I put on my oldest, most comfortable black top, favourite gray skinny jeans, a mismatched lime green mardi gras necklace and a red Alice band in hopes of brightening up my gloomy demeanor and slap my hair back into a pony tail. With the grace of a whale, I stumble around the house and finally get into the car with my mother. 

It's raining slightly. My gaze is the general vicinity of my knees. My thoughts revolve around college, friends, certain people, work and so on. It comes to a halt at my sister and I realise I miss her. I sigh and stick my freezing hands under my thighs and sigh in relief. The day is bleak and overcast, the clouds hang in the sky like pregnant women all the way to college. 

The panoramic lounge gives a perfect view of the sky. It starts to pour buckets and I sit with Mariam, Mandy and Mutaz; freezing and sipping Bru hot coffee from the canteen. The tip of my nose is cold and I wish I could stick my nose into it. After a breakfast, Jevon walks in, wisely wearing a hoodie and he and I talk random crap for a while, like we always do. I decide to have lunch with him and walk off to a boring Bio lecture. 

Two hours later, I miss my sister again. It's a dull ache. I walk back into the lounge. The sky is the lightest of lazulines with a strange sprinkle of the dullest aquamarine. It's almost like the sky is hopeful but not hopeful enough to have faith to be completely cerulean like the skies you get during the months of July. The perfect shades of periwinkle that fade into purple, brilliant orange, violent vermilion and spun gold. No. Today's sky is likely to fade into a depressing shade of sick beige. I try to optimistic as I sit down with Jevon for lunch. We have two helpings of rice amidst talking about Drunk Stories and vaginas. I don't feel so alone. Normally I would sit at the lounge and it would be full of people that I know and yet I'd feel so alone, so disconnected from everyone there. I know for a fact that I am not the only person who feels this way but it still feels crappy.

The rest of the day passes on with small talk and remotely interesting conversations with people. The sky steadily grows bleaker and grayer as my spirits and self-esteem plummet lower and lower in circling spirals in a beautiful sky-dive after seeing certain parties. Maybe I need to stop giving a shit about certain parties. I was happier before I started caring.  

I am heading home and my thoughts stray back to my sister again. I look up at the sky while driving down Galle Road. 

It's a beautiful shade of Conch-shell pink. It's also mixed with the pink of a perfectly poached salmon and I see mauve dusting the edges. There are streaks of gooey gold across the expanse of pink and the edges of these gold shards are a brilliant orange, shading even deeper into crimson. Fiery, fiesty colours, just like my sister. I watch the sky, mesmerised, not knowing what to think. It's like a brilliant canvas of an artist who lived in the sun. It's beautiful and I choke up. Everything is pink and it's beautiful. The car moves along the road and I can see the ocean, the beautiful Indian waters stretching out. I look up from my tears just in time to see the sun dip down into the horizon to wrap up another day, and for the briefest moment, the world turns red. I think of my sister, miles away, and I pray for her to have sunsets like these I pray for everyone to witness the amazing depth of nature around us, even in something as simple as a sunset. I pray for anyone who is dying to see such a sunset before they leave this world. 

The day is done, and even though I have no one to go home to, I'm okay. I have myself.

And I have hope.

Hope for another pink sky.