The wristwatch buzzed. 1:20 a.m. Ugh. I turned over. The watch buzzed again. I had set four alarms so I wouldn’t oversleep this time. Sigh… I guess I have to get up.
I drove for a good half hour through the spring night. Quiet, as expected. At the end of an overgrown forest track, I parked and set off, trudging across the bog toward the marsh. There was something ghostly about it. Only the snap of twigs underfoot and the soft murmur of a shallow stream broke the silence. At last, I reached the marsh. It still held the long winters frost, and I crossed toward the pools, this time without sinking too much into the wet bog.
Once I reached the edge of a pond, I quickly set up the tripod, attached the camera, and started shooting.
Beautiful.
The Milky Way arched over the pond just as I had imagined it would. An occasional satellite sped across the darkness of space. Quiet. Only a lone toad croaked in the shallows, and somewhere far away I could hear the calls of geese.
