The Birthday Gift

In back of a remote farmhouse, the sun drops to the horizon, turning the tops of the piney woods orange. Peeper frogs begin to chirp in the cooling air, and hunched over a picnic table, a father drinks from a pint bottle, mumbling to himself. The boy knows enough not to bother him, but he's excited about his birthday gift - a magic kit - and driving his father's tractor for the first time. Will he drive it tomorrow? He creeps toward him, wanting to show him the trick he just learned, wanting to ask him about the tractor. "Daddy?"

The Birthday Gift is a simple tale that defies description - like a dream, a feeling, or a smell that carries one back to a magical place and time - a time when perfection was still thought possible, a place where a boy could still imagine reaching the sun.