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Glow Worm Caves, New Zealand by Daniel Kordan

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Aurora Borealis, Iceland

Photographed by Freddie Ardley

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The Narrows (Utah/USA) by Eddie Lluisma

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“The angry ocean” | La Jolla, California || troyanthonyphoto

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Under the Northern Lights

From Chris Burkard

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Kirkjufell, Iceland | Photographer: Luca Micheli

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I'm not attracted to the physical in someone. I'm attracted to the depth of their soul where we can make music together.

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Skater Girl

“So, what’s your deal?”

Such simple words, yet they changed the summer break of 1992 forever.

They say you always remember your first love. I’m not sure how true it is for others, but I do. For all the wrong reasons.

I was a lonely kid. After my parents’ death, I’d lived with an uncle and aunt. Now, they weren’t bad people, but they never wanted kids, especially not a teenager in the middle of puberty.

I guess we were all happy in our own ways when I proposed that I’d live on my own a few years later. They provided me with enough money to scrape by, and so I moved into a small apartment complex at the edge of town.

It was Thursday evening, one week into summer break when I first saw her.

Memory is a strange thing. So much of my life is nothing but vague blurs and half-guesses. Yet, I remember this evening as vividly as if it happened yesterday.

For the past few days, I’d wasted away inside my apartment. Eating microwaved meals, watching TV, and reading books. Eventually, the heat and the stuffy air of the small one-room place drove me outside.

I didn’t have a destination in mind; I just wanted to go on a simple walk.

The day had been hot, but now that the sun was setting, the air was comfortably mild. I walked along the small path that led around the complex, and before long, I settled down on a bench.

I leaned back and watched as the deep red sky slowly turned dark.

The sounds of the town had quieted down. The bustle of people and cars was replaced by cicadas and the chirping of a lonely bird nearby.

I inhaled the evening air deeply before I took out my small notebook and scribbled down a few awkward lines.

I had aspirations of becoming a poet one day, but of course, all I wrote was terrible. I was sixteen after all.

I’d just jotted down another pretentious musing about the night sky when I noticed her.

She was riding on a simple, old skateboard, speeding down the path towards me.

She wore dark shorts and an equally dark long-sleeved shirt. It seemed to be far too big for her delicate frame. Her short auburn hair was waving in the slight evening breeze. A hint of a smile played around the corners of her mouth as her big brown eyes stared at the night sky above.

She didn’t talk to me that night, didn’t even acknowledge me. She sped past me, leaving me staring after her, mouth agape.

It felt like I sat there for hours, thinking about her. I guess I secretly hoped she’d return and ride past me once more.

Eventually, I gave up and returned back to my small apartment.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her, much less sleep. Skater Girl, I came to call her. In my mind, I conjured up stories of how the two of us would get to know each other and fall in love, knowing even at my age how silly it all was.

I think when my parents died, something broke inside of me. Some essential part that makes you a normal, functioning human being. Something that could never be fixed, and that drove me away from people and society as a whole.

Skater Girl changed it all. From the first time I’d seen her, I was driven back to that same bench every evening.

She wasn’t there every day, but every other and that was enough for me.

I never mustered up the courage to call out to her, and it was more than a week before she finally acknowledged me.

“So, what’s your deal?” she called out to me from afar and stopped a meter in front of me.

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