ITHACA—On Friday evening, the sun set, much as it has every evening for the last four billion years. As is common on days with slight cloud cover, every social media feed was temporarily plagued with impressionist photos of pink and purple and orange.
For Markus Grey ’28, the photos of the sunset were a welcome gift. “When I walked out of class, it was so dark! I wasn’t sure where the sun had gone. I was worried that maybe someone had stolen it, or I was selectively blind, or the apocalypse had begun. But when I checked Instagram, I realized that it had just sunk below the horizon and disappeared from view.”
Even after tapping through a million stories of the same sunset, Grey continued to be thankful. “I have short-term amnesia, so when I swipe past someone’s sunset photo, I start getting worried again. Thankfully, the next story contains a photo of the exact same sunset taken from a few feet away!”
The next morning, Grey woke up to a sunny day, leaving him unsure where the fuck the sun had come from. After all, no one had posted a sunrise photo.
