The sign in front of Billie's Bar, near Mallory Square, shows the time of today's sunset. Crowds of people have already gathered on the square for the sunset ritual, but they are quiet, "Quiet as only a Key West crowd can be," as Ernest Hemingway wrote.

The silence is broken by the jazzy singsong of the cookie lady, "Don't blame me when I'm gone...and you don't have any cookies or key lime brownies." A contingent of hawkers take up respective anthems, and the air is pierced with a litany of shouts. Guitar strummers and a bagpipe player take up the incessant beat, as more people...Cubans, conchs, Island blacks, tourists and gays of all descriptions...begin to arrive to celebrate the vesper ritual. Reflecting inner tranquility all are looking across the water to the sinking sun, already dashing the sky with a Gauguin-like celebration of hues.

As hot gay men mingle with the crowd doing what they do best, showing what they have tucked away, a salty old seaman is still talking to the pigeons. All have come to participate as a community. Many have followed their individual destinies to this town, filled with names like Bahama Mama, Full Moon Saloon, Lazy Afternoon and Hurricane Alley. It would be the end of the rainbow for some, the end of the line for others, as it had always been for centuries - a crucible of contrasts distilled in the twilight hour between night and day, day and night.

The smallest fragment of the sun hangs in suspension and then sinks out of sight. The crowd applauds quietly. They applaud the mystery of their own existence, the brief glimpse of eternity in that dreamlike fraction of dawn and dusk. As the darkness gathers, one can hear the drums and glimpse the silhouette of dancers - Key Westers offering their own private canticle to the departing sun. "Only in Key West!" Sunset in Key West, A real happening!