title: Darkness and Lightness: Observations, moments of dark and light we all experience in life
author: Mr. Norman Rivera Gonzalez
description: Norman Rivera Gonzalez lives in Brooklyn NY. He enjoys getting together with family and friends for lunch and dinner. A simple coffee rendez-vous is ideal as well. What he likes most is uplitfting a person's spirt and making them smile and laugh.
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  ![](Images/image00241.jpeg)
  
  _Begin Reading_
  
   _Table of Contents_
  
   _Copyright Page_
  
   _1_
  
    
  
  Above Northern Uganda  
  November 12—0203 Hours GMT+3
  
    
  
  THE ROAR IN CRAIG RIVERA’S ears combined with the darkness to make everything
  he knew—everything real—disappear. He wondered if astronauts felt the same
  sense of emptiness, if they wondered like he did whether God was just at the
  edge of their vision.
  
  He looked at a dial glowing faint green on his wrist. The letters were
  Cyrillic, but the numbers tracking his altitude and coordinates were the same
  as the government-issue unit he trained with.
  
  Rivera tilted his body slightly, angling north as he fell through fifteen
  thousand feet. A hint of warmth and humidity began to thaw the skin around his
  oxygen mask, and below the blackness was now punctured by widely scattered,
  barely perceptible points of light.
  
  Campfires.
  
  When his GPS confirmed that he was directly over the drop zone, he rolled onto
  his back f