The Warmth of Stolen Gold

The smell of late afternoon always reminds me of dry earth cooling down after a long, feverish day. It is a scent that clings to the back of the throat, like the fine dust kicked up by bare feet running across a courtyard. I remember the feeling of sun-drenched skin, that peculiar, prickling heat that settles into the marrow of your bones when you have been outside for too long. It is a heavy, golden sort of exhaustion, the kind that makes your eyelids flutter and your limbs feel as though they are made of warm honey. We spend our lives trying to bottle these moments, to keep the light from slipping through our fingers, but the body knows better. It absorbs the glow, storing the radiance in the hollows of the collarbone and the curve of the palms. If you sit perfectly still, can you still feel the ghost of that summer heat pressing against your cheeks, waiting for the evening to finally arrive?

Liton Chowdhury has captured this exact feeling in his beautiful image titled Melody of Lights. It is a portrait that breathes with the quiet, golden contentment of a day well spent. Does this light feel as warm to you as it does to me?