Easter Story 6

What is the colour of that sky? wondered Pliny, standing aft on the Dolphin Princess looking across the darkening Port River towards the red horizon and the black outline of the mangroves.
But it wasn't red. It was orange. No, it wasn't orange. And it definitely wasn't mandarin. That she knew because she had just eaten a warm chicken salad garnished with mandarin segments from a tin.

The breeze was not quite warm and mild. There were collections of black sticks floating on the gleaming water. They may have been seagulls. They were seagulls. Once the Dolphin Princess had passed them they turned white against the black water. A sunset trick.

The colour of the sky was, she realised, the colour of fire. And the colour of fire was the colour that the sky was, just then. So it should be, she thought. The sun is a ball of fire. She was glad she had thought that.

Now she could go back inside.