As the plane tilted its nose back and lifted off the ground, I was soon met with the speckled yellow lights of a lifeless city beneath me like stars in the night sky. The next moment I was one with the clouds as my home disappeared in the dew-spitting hours of the morning. 

When our flight altitude was reached, the airscape parted, the clouds below us looking like the exhaled puffs from a cheap cigar, the clouds above us a solid blanket. The sun peered out from all elements of our planet collectively as it woke slowly. 

For the first time I felt like I was racing the sun. It’s a race I refused to sprint, but rather jog. I wanted the sun to catch up so I could be enveloped in its presence and the life it radiates, but it was behind me. 

The plane, my speedy aeronautical vessel, was headed West. The sky surrounding my view was growing brighter with every blink, but the sun itself was still shying away from the world. 

Each time I turned my head to look back, more shades of bright yellow, faded orange, and hot red appear. They merge together to form a wall of color which the sun will break down to signify to the world that it is time to come to life.