“The Girl Who Sold Sunsets”

The Girl Who Sold Sunsets

by [ali rehman]

No one knew her real name.

The people in the small coastal town called her Solara, though she never introduced herself that way. She was simply the girl who sold sunsets.

Every evening, just before the sun kissed the horizon, she stood on the cliffside market overlooking the ocean, her wooden cart glimmering with glass jars of every size. Inside each one, it seemed, swirled an impossible light—orange, pink, violet, and gold, moving like liquid silk. The jars hummed softly, like the faint sigh of the evening breeze.

Tourists thought it was a trick—some kind of clever chemistry, or a reflective glaze that captured the last rays of day. Locals knew better. They’d seen her out there alone, standing on the rocks, barefoot, arms raised toward the falling light. They’d seen the air shimmer around her hands and spill into the jars she carried.

She would whisper something each time, a phrase the wind never carried to listening ears. Then she would cork the jar, tuck it gently into her cart, and smile like someone who had caught something rare and alive.

The sunsets weren’t cheap.

She didn’t trade for coins or paper. She asked for memories.

A smile from your childhood. A laugh you no longer remembered the sound of. A night that once made you feel infinite.

You told her what you would give, and she would nod, reach out her hand, and you would feel the moment slip away from you—cleanly, painlessly—like a thread pulled from a tapestry.

In return, she’d hand you a jar.

When you opened it, your room would fill with the colors of hope. You’d smell salt air, feel warmth on your skin, and remember—just for a few moments—what it meant to dream.

And when the light faded, you’d find yourself smiling, though you wouldn’t quite know why.

One evening, a man came to her stand just as the last light began to vanish.

He was older, face marked by fatigue and faint regret, his coat still smelling faintly of city smoke. He watched her for a long time before speaking.

“You sell sunsets,” he said. “Do you sell sunrises, too?”

She smiled faintly. “No one ever asks for those.”

He nodded. “People prefer endings, don’t they? Easier to hold onto.”

He looked down at her jars. “What do they cost?”

“Something you’ve stopped believing in,” she said simply.

The man hesitated. “Then I suppose I have plenty to give.”

She filled a jar for him that night, standing on the edge of the cliff as the horizon blazed red and molten gold. The air seemed to bend around her palms, the sea holding its breath. When she sealed the jar and handed it to him, he stared into it like a child seeing color for the first time.

“It’s beautiful,” he whispered. “But tell me… why do you do this?”

Her eyes softened. “Because someone once gave me one.”

He frowned. “Someone sold you a sunset?”

“Not sold,” she said. “Gifted.”

She leaned against the cart, her voice almost a sigh. “I was a child then. Lost. My mother had fallen ill, and the world had gone grey. I met an old woman on this very cliff. She gave me a jar and told me to open it when I forgot what light looked like.”

“What happened when you opened it?”

“I remembered that endings can be beautiful,” she said. “Even if they hurt.”

The man left with his jar, and that night, in a small rented room, he opened it. The light spilled out like liquid fire, touching the walls, his skin, the back of his eyes. He wept—not from sadness, but from remembering what it felt like to care.

In the morning, he returned to the cliffside. Her cart was gone.

Weeks passed. Then months.

But the story of the girl who sold sunsets only grew. Some said she had moved to another coast, where the sky burned a different shade. Others claimed she had finally run out of light to gather.

Yet, on certain evenings, if you stood alone by the water and listened closely, you could still hear a faint humming, like bottled warmth calling to its twin in the sky.

And sometimes, just as the sun began to fall, you could see a glimmer far out on the rocks—a small figure, arms raised, the air bending in her palms.

Years later, the man returned again, older now, slower. He carried with him the same jar, still faintly glowing from within. He placed it on the cliff and whispered into the wind, “Thank you.”

Then he left it there.

And when night fell, the jar burst open with light, painting the sea in molten colors. The horizon shimmered—and for a fleeting second, two figures stood side by side, holding the sun between them.

From that day on, the townsfolk said the sunsets over that cliff seemed warmer, more alive—as if someone, somewhere, was still catching them, one by one, so that the rest of the world would never forget how to dream.