Eclipse

You would think that you wouldn’t need to tell most sensible grown-up people that you shouldn’t look up at the sun.  Yet, it seemed like they wanted to reinforce it so badly.  I mean, the draw of something that only happens ever 8 or more years or so really makes people want to do something potentially harmful.  I get it.  People take precautions, though.  Those crazy glasses.  Tiny viewers with peepholes.  Tutorials on how to record it on your camera without burning out the sensor.  They say you can take in the experience, but it’s still behind a filter.  It isn’t the real thing.

My boss told me not to look at the sun.  The morning news squeezed it in between the traffic updates and the weather.  Even Twitter, in that little “in case you missed it section,” that never goes away despite trying to block it– that was saying it too.  I decided to ignore it.  I’ve worn glasses since I was in the fourth grade, and gone through at least seven different stages of prescriptions.  It’s not like my vision can get that bad.  I mean, I’ve gotten to see Eiffel Tower before, so it’s not like I’m missing out on much either.

The time came, it began passing over.  The dark disk started to move into place, crawling like something out of a cheap sci-fi horror of Alien invasions.  I had my glasses just in case, but the moment the sun went into full eclipse, I removed them, looking deeply into the void of blackness.  It’s a finite point in time that it’s directly in front of the sun.  That’s when I saw it.  A quick blinking, followed by a quick glint of strange light like I had not seen before.  Up above at the edge of the disk, a man in light blue coveralls, on a footstool, holding what looked like a burnt-out bulb, stood.  Then, he disappeared, and the orb of light began creeping back out.  People started heading back in to their places of work, unknowing.

But I saw.