The Stars Began to Fall
Pete's telescope malfunctions, but he enjoys the meteor shower anyway.
"Why are these things so hard to adjust?" Pete said as he moved the barrel of the telescope up and down. Clearly, his counterweight wasn't set correctly.
He had arrived at the lookout earlier that afternoon so that he would have plenty of time to set up his equipment, and here it was dusk, and things still weren't working. Thankfully, the portable tokamak he had purchased at the discount shop was humming away at the edge of the clearing. The little device's power was more than enough to keep his gear working. In fact, he could power a small town with the small, trashcan-shaped object. If only he could get his telescope balanced!
Pete took a deep breath and stepped back, hoping that breathing in some of the fresh mountain air would help clear his mind and give him a new perspective on correcting his setup.
He looked up and could see the streaks of light racing across the sky. The meteor shower had already started. Pete breathed in deeply again and decided that rather than fight his gear through the whole event, he would sit back and take it all in.
Pete sat down in his creaky lawn chair and sipped from his tumbler-filled ice-cold sweet tea.
"Ahh! That's good stuff!" Pete said to no one in particular.
"Sometimes you just have to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show."
So, he sat back and looked up...
...as the stars began to fall.