Happy Friday everyone! Here’s a little story I wrote, hope you like it!

Totality

During the eclipse I saw my life flash before my eyes. Jennifer held my hand, her soft fingers interlaced with mine. We were both a little breathless after climbing up the hill to get to the best vantage point in the neighborhood. She was not just an amateur astronomer, she was about to earn her doctorate in the science. But her eyes still lit up at the idea of an eclipse. And she wanted to spend it with me. 

We had set out folding chairs, filled our thermos up with hot cocoa, layered up in our warmest winter jackets and waited for the early evening when the eclipse was predicted. A total eclipse of the sun this time. As she explained to me the vast distances between us, the moon, and the sun from the moon, I couldn’t help feeling her passion. It was the way I felt about her. 

For about the millionth time she reminded me not to look directly at the sun. I had no plans to do so. We looked through our eclipse glasses and they reminded me of watching a 3D movie. There were plenty of other couples and families around us. I thought briefly of what it would be like when we had kids.

Then she gripped my arm and gave a little gasp. 

“First contact,” she said.

I thought of Star Trek. But then I realized she meant the eclipse was happening. 

It seemed like forever as the sun dimmed and the black shadow of the moon grew. I started to feel a pit in my stomach grow. There was something unsettling about it to me.

Eventually she whispered in my ear, “Second contact, Isn’t this exciting?”

I nodded but I felt as if I was becoming weightless. A strange smell wafted into my nose. It was a smell of rot and decay. 

Her hand gripped mine tighter and suddenly it didn’t feel like her young, soft skin. It was hard bone. I tried to look at the eclipse, fearing what I would see beside me.

When a rattly whisper came again from my right side, the voice sounded like Jennifer’s grandmother. 

“Totality.”

Suddenly I was spinning. I closed my eyes against the total darkness.

 When I opened them I remembered where I am now. In this hospital. In this bed where they bring me pills. They tell me it will make me better but they are liars.

I know what happened on the day of the eclipse. The moment it was over, just as Jennifer said, “Fourth contact” I bent down on one knee and brought out the ring. She said yes. 

The smell of decay had been my own from this very bed. Foul and filthy. I hate it. The feeling of unease was my mind telling me I was about to come back to this hell of a reality.

On that day, when I felt myself spin I saw the two of us married, we had five children, she became famous and I became an accountant. That’s what I thought would happen. In reality, she did become famous, at least, among academics. She wrote several books. I became an office drone for a tech company. We only had two kids.

But that memory of the eclipse, the things I saw that moment? They felt more real than anything I experienced.

Now, it’s cruel. I am there. There with my Jennifer, about to relive the most important thing in my life, with my love. I see it, I feel it. But then a man in scrubs snaps his fingers at me and says, “Hello Mr. Sinclair, how are we today?”

I’m confused. I don’t know who he is or where I am for a moment. He is not Jennifer and as far as how I am? I tell him. “I’m shit today. Who are you?”

He tells me but I don’t remember him five minutes later. My children come to me. Sometimes, I think Patty is Jennifer. At least, that’s what they tell me. I only know that day, that moment. The eclipse. If I can get back there to that moment, I could do it all over again with her. Perfect, the way it was.

They shove applesauce at me on a tray. The lights are bright. Like looking at the sun. Jennifer would not approve. The bony skeleton hand I feel when I remember that day is my own. I wake up holding my own hand, thinking it’s Jennifer. She’s been gone for so long.

I want to be out on the grass with her again. Full of life and youth and possibility. Waking up and seeing that your love is gone, you are old, and there are strangers everywhere? It’s hell. It’s a nightmare. I just want to rest. I want to see Jennifer again. There is only that moment for me. That moment, that day, her amber eyes tearing up. Her kiss on my lips. That’s the moment I want forever. And I keep getting it, only to come back here. To find an old man in an old body with a confused mind at the end of his life. A well lived life but one this old man can’t remember. I feel about as far from my youth as the moon is from the sun.  But I can remember the eclipse.

As I grow irritated and sleepy once again, I see Jennifer’s young face. I feel her hand grip mine. She places glasses on my eyes so I can see the eclipse. I hear the words again.

“First contact. Second contact. Isn’t this exciting? Totality.” My nerves are on edge, my stomach is spinning. I’m about to ask the most important question of my life.

“Fourth contact.”

“Will you marry me?”

As my eyes darken for what might be the last time I hear her voice. I always hear her voice. She says, “Yes. In totality.”