Eclipse Behavior

Thought you all might enjoy this short whimsical account of the last solar eclipse I witnessed. This was broadcast on NPR, then published in my book The Ghosts of Good Intentions. Please feel free to share.

Eclipse Behavior

I landed in England a week ahead of the total eclipse of the sun, which the news people were calling “the event of a lifetime.” The country was awash in a lather of predictions. Astronomers predicted the strange behavior of the heavens. Zoologists predicted the strange behavior of animals, which would fall silent, flee in terror, or think night had fallen and fly home to roost. Nobody, though, accurately predicted the strange behavior of the English.
The eclipse would be 100% total only in Cornwall, in the very west of England, and everyone predicted that the narrow lanes of Cornwall would be a traffic nightmare. Sky TV had cultivated a tame policewoman, to whom they went live every few hours. “Still no major traffic problems,” she said four days before E-day. “People seem to have been taking our advice and staggering their departure times.” No kidding. Some had left home the previous week.
Pagans, looking disappointingly normal, appeared on screen saying they were looking forward to the Big E, but would not be making human sacrifices. Health experts, looking strangely abnormal, warned us every five minutes not to look directly at the sun.
The morning of E-day I was at my brother’s house in London, which was being told to expect 97% eclipsehood. ”Still no problems,” said Sky’s tame policewoman. “I get the feeling you’re almost disappointed.”
Total E was due to reach Cornwall at 11:11 and head eastwards across the country. My brother made a pot of tea, just in case. We trooped out into the back yard. Ignoring all the medical advice, I squinted at the sun at around 11, and was blinded until 11:06, when I poked a hole in a sheet of paper as recommended and, sure enough, there was a bite out of the tiny sun shining through the hole and onto the garden chair.
“Listen,” said my brother urgently. “No birds.” At once a flock of birds flew overhead, calling loudly.
The temperature had dropped sharply. I thought the earth was supposed to retain its heat? One of the cats ran up a ladder. “Typical eclipse behavior,” said my brother, trying to make up lost ground.
It was getting dark, but an odd, grey dark. First the clouds started to seem flat, then everything lost its depth and luster. We were in a two-dimensional London garden without color. At 11:20 a veil of cloud obligingly slid over the sun, and we all squinted directly at the slim fingernail of sun left in the flat, grey sky.
And then for a second it really was quiet, though the silence was not from a lack of birdsong or catcall, but of traffic. All over England, people stopped to look up. Then it passed, and the streets of London began to snarl up once more–though not as badly as the lanes of Cornwall, where everyone was, of course, setting off for home at exactly the same time.