The humid night air clung to Elias like a second skin as he hauled the heavy tripod onto the flat roof of his apartment building. In his left hand, he gripped a weathered copy of The Practical Astronomer, 2nd Edition . Its spine was cracked, and the pages were swollen from years of exposure to dew and starlight.
He set the telescope, a modest 80mm refractor, and leaned over the eyepiece. The city of Chicago glowed below him, a sea of orange streetlights fighting to drown out the sky. Most people looked at the orange haze and saw a void. Elias, following the diagrams on page 58, saw the celestial grid. The Practical Astronomer, 2nd Edition
Elias pulled a pencil from behind his ear and opened the book to the back flyleaf. Below his father’s last entry from 1998, Elias wrote: April 28th. The Veil is still there. So am I. The humid night air clung to Elias like