It was like standing next to Niagara Falls or at least an underground cylindrical Niagara Falls. A dark, brackish, mud pushed through the upper opening with a wet splop and slapped against the ground and the lower opening. Silty water followed directly behind roaring and blasting from the ceiling above. The two monstrosities slowed their…
It’s human nature to reduce complex ideas to banal simplicity for convenience sake. Nature versus nurture. Which behaviors are learned and which are inherited? How much of our personality is predetermined? Are we born as blank slates? Even the questions are trite. How does a spider know how to build a web? Spiders hatch from…
Gravity is weak. For what is considered one of the fundamental natural forces, gravity is weak sauce. And still has its own law and constant. Think about it. The more mass something has, the more gravitational force it exerts. A planet, let’s take the Earth as an example, is large by the standard of the…
You ever been on a hike or out in the woods and and in the distance you can hear the sound of rushing water? It’s faint at first. It blends in with the wind rustling the leaves in the tree tops. The closer you get to water the louder it gets until you finally break…
The universe is believed to be about 13.7 billion years old. It’s still expanding and eventually will start contracting. So if we built a spacefaring vessel that could travel at the speed of light, picked a direction and cranked on for billions of years, would we reach the end? Is there an edge? Apparently, many…
Eleven dimensions. That’s how the math works out. Ten physical dimensions and time. String theory, M-theory, blah blah. We occupy three of those physical dimensions. That’s the world we exist in. You have to wonder. What’s the fifth dimension like? No. Wait a minute. I’ve been thinking about it as a neat, ordered progression. As…
You know what’s terrifying? Look up. There’s an expanse of sky. A vast, encompassing black and blue ceiling. An invisible barrier and an electromagnetic force field protecting against cosmic radiation and solar flares. Look down. There’s concrete, earth, and rock. Solid, dependable, reliable. We are riding on a space ship flying circles around the sun.…
We drove, Gabriel and I, toward the city. I didn’t know where we were going. I didn’t really care. When one’s understanding of reality is soundly dismantled in the matter of half an hour or so, it puts life in perspective. When a divine being tells you that your new-perspective-equipped life is probably going to…
He said, “Oh s—.” He ran to the top of the hill in a blur. Out of morbid curiosity and the sudden feeling of being infinitesimally small I didn’t want to be left alone. I scrambled up the rocks after him and eventually reached the top to find him in a fast, low-voiced argument with…
“So. You’re an angel, huh?” I meet the most interesting people at sunrise and sunset. Anyone who makes a point of waking the sun or tucking it in bed, so to speak, usually has an interesting reason or story. “That’s what I said.” It was unreasonably cold that morning by the water, especially that close…
