We Have Privatized the Sunset

How it begins

The invoice charged me twelve pounds for orange.

Not the fruit. The sky.

I had photographed the harbor at seven forty-two, when the ferry windows caught the last light. The council had used the photograph on its website for thirty-seven minutes.

Then someone at Evening Leisure Holdings noticed.

Basil brought the invoice into my office with a packet of biscuits.

"Which bit did we buy?"

"None of it."

"That's usually when they charge."

Below the total was a polite explanation. Our town had entered an exclusive experiential-light partnership. Independent reproduction of the sunset required a license.

The mayor had signed in blue ink.

I phoned his assistant.

"Can a company own sunset?"

"Commercially."

"What about people looking at it?"

"Looking is currently included."

Basil stopped eating.

"Currently?"

The assistant sent us the partnership brochure.

There were three tiers.

At the premium level, residents could upload photographs without a watermark across the sun. The family package covered two adults and up to three dependent clouds.

I printed that page.

Then I printed the signature page.

The council's electricity bill had been reduced by an amount so large that, for a moment, I understood why nobody had asked what we were selling.

Outside, a wedding party assembled on the harbor steps. The bride lifted her phone toward the water.

A man in an orange waistcoat stepped forward with a tablet.

I watched the bride lower her phone.

Basil watched me watching.

"No," he said.

"I haven't said anything."

"You've got the face."

"What face?"

"The one that cost us the Christmas sponsor."

I opened the tide table. Then the street-light maintenance schedule.

Sunrise was at six thirteen.

As far as the contract was concerned, it belonged to nobody.

Basil reached for another biscuit.

"East," he said. "We'll need to point things east."

I turned the invoice over and began drawing a map.