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You are burned out. So you suggested to your wife that the whole family spend the weekend in a beach resort. You left the house in the morning, drove the whole day and arrived at the resort few hours before the sunset. You dropped your things, donned your beach wear, went barefoot and hurriedly went straight to the shore. The sand is not sugar-like but the pain is bearable. The wind is a bit cold and it gives you slight chills. You dip your feet into the water. It is still lukewarm since the sun is just about to set. You start to swim. Then you notice how beautiful the sun is. The kaleidoscope of colors: yellow, orange, bright orange, red, reddish orange. It’s like God’s canvas spluttered with beautiful colors.

You feel mesmerized. Sunset is always breathtaking and you find yourself staring at it, perplexed and speechless. You are there standing, you feel the small stones piercing your soles. With wet hair, your wet clothes on, the water drips to your skin. With the afternoon sea breeze softly blowing, you feel cold. You feel the discomfort, but you don’t care. You go on standing. You go on staring. You want to see the finality of the sunset.

Slowly, slowly. Down. Down. Until it’s gone.

Darkness.

But you remain standing. You want to see what comes next. The shore is part of the bay and you can see lights starting to flicker from the nearby island. The fishermen light up the gas lamps on the boats. You look up at the sky. The crescent-shaped moon starts to appear over at the horizon. And the countless stars twinkle as if they are smiling at you. The small insects start to swarm and bite, you swat them with your hands. You feel the stones poking your skin. You start to shiver from cold. But you feel happy as you have just witness an unspeakable beauty. Something that we tend to ignore as we rush through our daily lives. A celebration of life. A miracle.

You feel utterly happy. Blissful. Joyous.

This is exactly how I felt reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s debut novel Everything is Illuminated.

Amazing.