Amusing company can mask the moment an entire life ends.

Evidence

Mr. Fodder rattled so amusingly as we drove away that I never realized that my Rocky Mountain life was at an end, not even when I saw “Mountain Jim,” with his golden hair yellow in the sunshine, slowly leading the beautiful mare over the snowy Plains back to Estes Park, equipped with the saddle on which I had ridden 800 miles! A drive of several hours over the Plains brought us to Greeley, and a few hours later, in the far blue distance, the Rocky Mountains, and all that they enclose, went down below the prairie sea. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 270

Categorization

• FICTION: The mundane chatter that conceals a permanent leave-taking — the Rockies sinking ‘below the prairie sea’ — is a ready-made closing image for a story about not noticing a farewell when it happens.
• ADDENDUM: Rewriting the landscape description flips the trees-as-infrastructure frame to landscape-as-departing-presence.