Sky Lighting

by Jason Davis

He walked casually down the street in the clear white light of an innocuous November noon, trying to figure out what it meant to look un-guilty. He thought about the way that sunlight changes the mood of things, how it slides up and down the minor scale of the spectrum, and how the hues can get the settings mixed; some deified stage director running the spot lights on the world all wrong. Right now the light was too washed out, too pale for today; it belonged to a multi-day interstate ride, where the smoke and the tires burn the miles into a fine filtrate of travel. He thought about the fresh yellow light of an innocent April morning, made for elementary school field trips, or wading through slippery green meadows shot through with dandelion heads, or waking up beside someone you've missed for too long. He thought of the mocha purpled light of a late afternoon in the desert, that made every adobe wall look as if it should have had a cowboy slumped against it, gut shot in a final gunfight and bleeding out beautifully into the dust. Today the light should have been all long shadows and orange undertones, dark straight lines like prison bars to mark out his crime.

6S

Jason Davis lives and "works" in Seattle. He is unhealthily obsessed with writing, and as a result is a founding member of The Drinklings and a primary producer of The Story Game. He is preparing to go to Tibet for a year to study the art of the hidden pencil.