And the sun came in

@ 3'30"

It was a grey day, it went on and on.  We had headaches, strangely, all four of us.  I saw her poking at her eardrums as if the buzzing was inside.  More than grey, the clouds were almost black, sooty, blocking out the sun.

Then the clouds parted.  It was blacker behind them.

We realized then the clouds we took, all along, since our youth, to be opaque and light-swallowing had in fact been luminescent.  A stopgap radiance, a grimy shimmer.  A failing buffer against a perma-dark noon.

There was a long way to keep going.  We put our hoods up.