Sunset on Campus

The quiet light from the old desk lamp shone on the old wooden desk in his dorm room. He enjoyed keeping the overhead lights off; it carried a certain feeling with the contrasting light and shadows. He had just taken a cold shower after the gym, and had the single window open to the oncoming evening. He turned his head to look out towards the campus lawns below. There were a couple of groups of people speaking quietly in the dusk. The sound of laughter occasionally splashed across the night sky. Looking West, towards the sunset, the sky was a royal purple, fading into a deep navy the higher it went. Immediately along the horizon, there was an orange hue burning the distant mountains. It reminded him of summer nights back at home. Twinkling fireflies and a sky drenched in starlight. Throwing on a t-shirt, comfortable shorts, and flip flops, he headed out on a pleasure walk around the small college town. The air was rich with the fragrant smell of flowers and freshly cut grass. Sprinklers had turned on all around the campus lawns, making the air humid. The dorms were silhouetted against the oncoming dark now, and small ground lights were beginning to come on. It was a perfect temperature, comfortably warm with a small breeze descended from the mountains. He made a mental note to write about this exquisite evening in his journal. A first year student in college, he had decided to record as much as he could for when he got older. Memories, he had learned, were precious things in life. They could leave just as quickly as they came, and it was only the senses of the events that would remain. A certain smell, the way the light bends around the buildings, or the voices of friends. He walked uninterrupted for a while longer, looking in through the shop windows along main street. Later, back in the dorm, some other guys were playing a card game down the hall. Usually he would join, but tonight he felt like getting to bed earlier. He sat down to check his emails for one last time. Muffled comments about someone cheating and the score drifted into his room. Flipping open his laptop, he checked some messages from work, just coworkers discussing a recent project at work. He worked part-time during school to keep up with the cost of living and tuition; although he still had to take out student loans, like many of his peers. He was paying for himself without help from his parents, which was new for him. Musing over these things, an email caught his eye. The subject was from a drawing he recently entered for scholarship money. He opened it, not expecting more than the usual comments of when the next monthly contest would begin. However, a thrill of excitement began to overcome him as he read on. When entering, he usually kept low expectations, as promises of money attract many competitors. He smiled as he read his name listed as the grand prize winner. He sat stunned for a moment, not believing what he thought he saw. After making sure he was reading it right, he let out a joyful laugh. A victory dance was in order for this occasion, even at the age of 23. Nearly a year of tuition could be paid off. A car, vacation, an apartment, a ring for his girlfriend. The possibilities for twenty thousand dollars seemed endless to a college student. After some celebration with his roommates, they went to bed. Of course, he couldn’t sleep. Reaching behind his head to the top of his desk, he grabbed his black journal. It was a leather imitation journal, designed to be compact. His roommate entered the room from the outside hallway and remarked on the sunset they had earlier. They talked about the coming spring weather, and their individual plans for the weekend for a bit before his roommate fell asleep. Ken recorded the incredible chances of what had happened, and his feelings of overwhelming excitement about the day ahead.

An hour later, still awake, he thought about what exactly he would do with such a large sum of money. He could easily use it to buy a car, to buy lots of things really. Using prize money to buy new things while still in college, though, didn’t feel like the best course of action. He already had a job, so he already could keep up with paying off his fixed expenses. The thing to do, he decided, would be to use the prize money to pay for the last half of his tuition that semester, and most of the first half of his next year of college. He would put the rest in savings for the ring he had planned on purchasing for his girlfriend. He had decided he would propose to her on the last day of the semester, about three weeks from then.

“Look at you, already growing up.” he whispered quietly.

Time had passed so fast from when he had graduated high school just a few years prior. It seemed like everyday shrank as soon as it was gone. The recent years already felt like a type of sunset. An incredible one, with violet hues, a brilliant orange skyline, the sky above deepening into space, showing the stars. Just like earlier that day. There had never been such a time as this within his lifetime. Moving on from his youth to adulthood was past, now merely a part in starting a new era of life entirely. The decisions leading up to that point seemed like practices in comparison to what he now had to decide. Who he would spend the rest of his life with? What he would spend that life doing? A cool breeze fluttered through his open window. Would there ever be a time like this again? Full of life, the unknown, so much ahead. His last pen stroke left the page of the inside of the journal. A safe for the essence of times past, good and bad. His life would be recorded within the bound pages of a journal, so that he may always look back, and remember.