A Fire in the Sky
A dreary evening.
A surprising message. When was it sent? More than twenty minutes ago!
A hasty scramble for all manner of warm clothing. A clatter of shoes leaping down four flights of stairs. A well-lit night. Feet eagerly walking up and down, and down and up. A head gazing upwards.
A look of disappointment, and a slow walk up the stairs.
A discussion on Facebook: a time and a place – an adventure! Quick – a hurried dinner.
A group of shuffling feet. A pair of cameras, a flask of peppermint tea, a bottle of water. Excited footprints.
A hike into darkness.
A slope, a hill. A sheet of ice, a mass of snow. A moon, a star. A line of craned necks.
A glimmer. And a gasp.
A flash of green! A hint of pink. A flicker, a glow, a movement, a glitter! A wave of brightness!
An awe.
A silence.
And a fire in the sky.
PS: It turns out that I own a compass that actually doesn’t point North. The irony.
Comments
ooh! I liked this :) So different from your usual style!
Loved your writing style in this post! Keeps the reader so... Engaged. :)
Also, *__* somebody is such a lucky guy!
@3e6336d6376b862133bf15ab877db07a:disqus, @2f69e84cf98cea74f3bb639fd05b74f3:disqus: Thanks! Haha I couldn't decide how to write this at first, but then I thought of the title and it just fell into place!
Yeah, this is going on my Life's To Do List.
Btw, was the adventure on the same day that you got disappointed?
@61970bb1278cba93a6060586f35241b0:disqus: Yup, it was all on the same evening. The northern lights were (apparently) visible from around 7pm, the facebook message was around 8, I went out to check at about 9, and then we all decided to go up a nearby hill (away from all the light) at 11pm.
The photo I posted is taken from a different part of the city; we saw the lights from a different angle.
It's kinda still on my to do list though: I want to go further north where there is frequent activity and see the fast-moving multi-coloured lights (these were only green with a hint of pink). Some other time in the future I suppose!
So these things just keep happening all the time, or is there a specific time period? (I know I can Wikipedia it, but I did that when I read your post and I didn't feel like reading so much :P)
It's pretty cool that you live in a place, from where you can just go out whenever you want and be able to see some kind of Aurorae. :D
Wow. It must've been quite an experience! Just...wow.
And you should consider getting a new compass maybe? :P
I actually don't know a whole lot about the aurora either (I had the same reaction to the wikipedia article!) but as far as I do know: yup, aurora activity happens all the time, but the amount of activity varies (usually it's 'quiet'). At these times, you can see the northern lights if you're really high up near the north pole (Tromsø in Norway is supposed to be a good place). Also, at these places you can see a lot 'better' activity - more colours, more movement, etc (versus just the green and faint pink I saw).
Sometimes, due to solar flares and other activity, the aurora activity increases, usually for a day or two. This was why we could see it that day. Depending on how much it increases, you can see it quite far south, sometimes even from Oslo. But it doesn't look as cool as it would if you were further north.
And no, that's not true at all! In Trondheim, seeing the aurora is not so common since it isn't that much in the north. And it also needs to be nighttime on a clear day (clouds = you can't see the northern lights), and you need to be far from all the city lights.
@6a8495e4cf489f78f1eb0fba90452701:disqus: Oh, it definitely was. I would've been extremely disappointed had I come all the way to Norway and never seen the aurora, to say the least.
And that's the plan! It's too expensive here though, will get one in India.
Sahil Bajaj, you lucky lucky guy.
Northern Lights! *_*
PS: Nice post.
Great Stuff Dude
@89fcc7835209bbda3c393cae334895b5:disqus, @sahil: Thanks, guys!
That's amazing, nice photo
Oh, hey! H3110, haha :D
Thanks a lot, it was quite an experience!