unbibium

I must confess to very strange feelings as I write about day and night on Arde. Especially when I write about sunrise and sunset I imagine myself to be an Ardean standing on some rocky summit and watching a sliver of sun set over a slip of land. All is confined to the narrowest band of vision imaginable; an infinitesimal line, encompassing me, contains my entire visual world. I turn my head from Shems setting in the west, turn my head upward (not around) and swing my crystalline eyes to the east where all is darkness and settling gloom. As an Ardean I watch this fading light, taste the evening, listen to the sounds of burrowing things underfoot, and am satisfied with the day which draws to a close. Soon I will go down some stairs to my underground home, but first I look up again at the gathering stars which sprinkle the half-circle of heaven above my head. Suddenly, I am again an Earthling, trapped in the cruelest prison imaginable. When I look again at the setting Shems, it seems a narrow mockery of a sunset on Earth.

-- A.K. Dewdney, The Planiverse: Computer Contact With a Two-Dimensional World