Pheasants in the Mist

Pheasants in the Mist

The October sky darkens and melts into the horizon, hovering briefly between shades of cobalt blue and gray. Barren fields, pocked and ridged like a nuclear wasteland, stretch out on either side of the truck as we speed through the twilight, tires singing on the...

Skyfall: Parallax, Parsecs & Gravity

Skyfall: Parallax, Parsecs & Gravity

I’m 10 years old and lying on the grass in the backyard of my grandfather’s rambling South Carolina farmhouse some 65 years ago. I’m staring straight up. The sun has just set, and the late fall sky is an imagination-inspiring, vibrant palette: bright yellow-orange in...

Coyotes

Coyotes

It was the last day of deer season. Dalton had not hunted all year and he questioned the point of going when the alarm sounded. Yet his wife rousted him from bed.  “Go. It’s what your dad would have wanted,” she said. Dalton’s father had died the week before. A man...