Skyline by Barbara Samuels

My son lives in a fourth floor flat just outside central London.  From that vantage, the whole of the skyline is visible. In the evening, as light fades, something magical happens.  The scape transforms and a fairytale city appears.  Bejewelled with lights of red and soft yellow, beckoning with a promise of something other.

The effect requires collusion, requires an openness to a possibility.  It awakens an implanted desire.  I venture into the city and walk the streets of the skyline, go into the heart of the iconic buildings and wander.  Day turns to late afternoon, to early evening , to twilight.  The metropolis is suffused with lights. Feeling dwarfed, I raise my gaze skyward toward the disappearing tops of multiple obelisks which are now all too real!

The fairytale city is no longer there, it has evaporated!  The magic, transient as a mirage.