"Go look at the sun," he murmured. "Go see the sunrise."
They went out to look. Neither had ever seen a sunrise before. It was mauve first, then red, then gold, then blue. Venus led the way, and the sun followed. The moon, deep in the west, was like a tombstone to the dead night.
A bird chirruped. A clot of snow fell from a tree with a soft ruffle of cottony drums.
My grandfather held his sister's hand and looked and sniffed at the great Earth from which he'd been separated by the fear-inspired plastic over his City, so near, now, in the clear morning light. He climbed with Annie up the side of the draw and looked out over snow-covered plains stretching to a horizon farther away than the longest distance he'd ever imagined.
He went back and took Old Arch's head up on his knees and said, "Is it like this every day?"
And the old man said, "No, each day is different."
And my grandfather said, "Well, I've seen one, anyhow."
"That's what I've lived for," said Old Arch. And he smiled and stopped living.
Annie and my grandfather left him there and went back to the City and told the guards and their family. A burial party was sent out; guards, in their helmeted spacesuits.
People heard about it and followed. Everyone was curious because they'd all seen Old Arch and wondered about him.