&c

“Anyone sitting here?”

He raises his head, surprised to find himself here, in this place.

“N…no.”

Words. Words words words. Spoken. Faltering.

“Oh thanks. Sorry if I was interrupting something.”

“No…”

Where?

“…you weren’t…”

The sun, boxes, the sun, the soul crushing scale of it all.

“…no, feel free.”

She sits on the couch to his right. His coffee is still hot. How much time has passed. Any? None? 

He holds his mug tighter. The warmth on his hands.

Yes, it’s hitting him now. This place. Always this place. Extension of self upon itself. Personas flung freely from minds splattered onto the walls with passion and fury. Let it stick! Let it fall!

“Thanks.”

She smiles.

She sets a backpack beside her. She opens it and pulls out a notebook, carefully placing it on the table in front of her.

“Are you writing as well?”

What?

“Y…yeah, yes, I guess…”

Pause. Silence. The sun. The box. the sun.

“…I mean yes, to some extent.”

“How can you write to an extent?”

“Well, words, without thought I guess. I just…I just put words on a page. It’s nothing planned if that’s what you meant.”

“I didn’t mean anything. No implications. No assumptions.”

“Right. I mean right, I guess.”

“Right.”

Silence. The sun. The box. the sun.

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The sun was out and bright and full. What few clouds hung in the air did so lazily, wispy and slow, not willing to assert themselves beyond their known existence. The sun was bright and confusing.  With each step he could feel its rays, its photons, its multi-faceted being penetrate his skull and work its way downward through the rest of his body, warming it and yet shaking it. It was bright and he squinted his eyes. It reflected brightly off the few remaining puddles leftover from the recent rain.  His lids obscuring and yet revealing the environment around him. Hazy now, dark but a few rays sneaking past his flesh to push into his flesh.

Once when he was a child he had stared into the sun for what at that time seemed like a lifetime. It was the first solar eclipse that he remembered, and it was the last time he ever felt the experience in full.

The warning began a week before the event. The explanation had been given. The moon would position itself in such a way as to block out the sun. Blot it out. Turn day into night. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t look at it then. Darkness. No harm came of darkness.

“Even though the sun’s brightness will be obscured by the moon, it will still shine brightly enough to harm your eyes,” she, Mrls. Holdt, his fourth grade teacher had said so matter-of-factly.

“But I want to see it.”

“Oh and you still can. With this!”

“What is it?”

“It is a pinhole projector. By placing two holes here, covering this with foil and poking a hole in it, what’s happening in the sky will be represented here. You’ll see the sun go from full to dark and then back to full again. But safely.”

“Oh.”

The eclipse slowly took over every aspect of school. 

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