“Desert Eclipse”

The sky burned sideways—half sun, half shadow—as if the world couldn’t decide which way to turn. Wind whispered through thorn and stone, and even the scorpions stayed still. Under the eclipse, everything felt ancient and unfinished, like a story waiting to be told or erased.

He hadn’t seen another soul in three days. Just dust, bones, and the slow hiss of heat. He drank sparingly, walked carefully, and waited for a sign that he was still meant to be alive. Then the light shifted—unnatural, unholy—and the dead tree ahead of him lit up like a signal fire.

Maybe it was warning. Maybe it was welcome. Either way, he moved toward it.

“Gravel Light”

They say he worked alone—pickaxe in hand, boots full of dust, a lantern swinging from a nail driven into the stone. Just one of a hundred nameless men trying to carve a future from the spine of northern Minnesota. The mines took most of them. He stayed longer.

No one remembers when he stopped coming down. They say he built a shelter up on the bluff, high above the noise, where the cliffs glowed red in moonlight and the stars spun like sparks from the forge. Some say he vanished. Others say he never left—just walked out under the sky one night and became part of the rhythm.

Now the pit is silent. But the stone still catches fire after dark, and the stars still drag their long, glowing scars overhead. If you listen hard, you might hear the echo of steel on stone—or maybe it’s just the wind pretending to remember.

“The Ladder”

It was never meant for roofs.

This ladder rises into a sky torn open by time—each streak a memory in motion, each color a whisper from the stars. No one remembers who left it there, leaning into the void, waiting for someone brave or foolish enough to climb.

Some say it belonged to a dreamer who believed the stars were steps. Others claim it was used once, long ago, and the climber never came back—not down, at least. Maybe it leads somewhere. Maybe it leads nowhere. But it stands there still, quiet and impossible, pointing upward like a question only the night can answer.

“Campfire on Caribou”

This was my fire. My camp. A summer night when the lake barely whispered, and the forest leaned in to listen. You can still see the gear scattered around the stones—coffee mug, fuel bottle, the quiet mess of someone who planned to stay up late. I did. I watched sparks drift into the pines like little souls trying to climb home.

But I wasn’t the first.

Two hundred years ago, a voyageur may have landed on this same shore. He’d have dragged his canoe up the rocks, pulled a flask from his sash, and lit a fire with tinder tucked dry inside a birchbark roll. He’d have warmed pemmican over the coals. Whispered a prayer in French. And stared into the flames until the crackle became memory.

Maybe it’s just coincidence. Or maybe fire remembers.

Either way, this campsite has seen more stories than I ever will. Mine was just one more ember.