October Sky

On October 23, 2077, I was finally eighteen. The year I graduate high school, the year I can finally do whatever it is I want. I just hope my parents don’t lie about that like they do about everything else. In Sanctuary Hills my brother Damian and I were getting ready to go to a party a few friends of mine were throwing for me at the veterans hall in another town named Cambridge. I went downstairs to remind mom of where we were going and how long we were going to be out. She handed me fifty…

Flames rushed skyward from a structure less than a mile away across the sagebrush. At the height of another dry desert summer in July 2013, Chris Tucs, a novice member of Carson, New Mexico’s volunteer fire department, was working in the yard of his off-grid home when he saw the blaze. He threw a few shovels into the back of his truck, hitched up a trailer loaded with 300 gallons of water, and sped to the scene, looking up from navigating the ruts in the road to see flames shooting through the…

Every week, I had to go out at least twice to look up into the night sky. This changed my understanding of the night sky. I started to paint pictures in the heavens. Connecting the dots of constellations, Ursa Major, Scorpius, Lynx, all coming to life before my eyes. Showing me their unique stories of love, honor, or greed. Those nights standing…

that told of rain floated peacefully through the sky. Along this trip we did not just take in the stunning sights the island had to offer. There were many small bodies of water and waterfalls dotted within the trees, hidden from sight. Jumping into these small pools was extremely refreshing when under the warm sun in the middle of the day. It was not only the pools of water in the forest that kept us cool. As the darker clouds covered the blue sky we found one of the caves on the island. Without…

I opted to conduct my rhetorical analysis and evaluation on the Emergency Preparedness poster from the Ad Council. The print ad or poster in question shows a town that a tornado has ripped through, with markers showing where members of a hypothetical family are located. The message of this particular ad piece is quite simple, in the event of a serious emergency; know where your family is. This in itself speaks to a need in all of us to be connected to our loved ones, especially in a time of…

My breath is calm, my pulse low. I am standing at the edge of the 50 meter pool. The sun is setting and the sky in my back is still red, but I look already into a dark blue if I lift my head. With the light breeze blowing around my naked feet’s I start to shiver. With all the visitors gone, it is time for me to swim my laps. I try to clear my mind and prepare myself for the distance I will swim today. Pyramid training which equals the distance of 3.900 Meters (= 2.5 Miles). It means I will start…

Abu Dhabi desert, the view amazed me, it was so elegant and mesmerizing that for an instant I forgot about the sweltering heat that penetrated my skin. The sky looked like lashes of water color, with spots of red and blue, and at some points they joined to form a shade of indigo and lilac. There were many spotted clouds above, that filled the sky with their pure white puffiness, but it was the vivid sun that I could not take my brown eyes off. It looked like a gold coated globe covered with…

It was always the eyes that got me. I could walk in that forest forever, getting lost in millions of shades of green and tree bark brown, with raging fireflies floating around, lighting up every corner. A forest of fireflies. The eyes, the twin moles on his cheek, the soft brown hair which he likes to keep short even though he’s adorable when it’s long, the straight, large nose; all so common to others, but more important than anything in the world to me. It’s weird how realities can change so…

An Unforgettable Experience Waking up from my sleep hearing the melodies from natural sounds like birds chirping, roosters crowing outside my window, listening to the sound of the leaves rustling as the wind blows through the trees while sunshine caresses my face. A calming tropical breeze that sifts through the kitchen that reaches my bedroom. Another perfect day in the Caribbean. As I walk toward the living room to start my day. I turn on CBS News and proceed to the bathroom. While…

The Eyes of the Ocean The sea, a luminous gray, spills across the bottom of the picture. The brooding sky, like an echo of the sea, spreads itself across the top portion of the photograph. Between the two of them, a town huddles in shadow. The viewer finds herself unable to look away from the photograph. There seems to be some dark truth in it. “Invisible Borders,” a color photograph by Mae Kelley, was taken from a boat about a mile off shore. The perspective captures a portion of the town that…