TOTALITY

Newly married, they couldn’t help looking for signs and wonders; they required a blessing, or at least an endorsement. But the man at the campground gate was saying, “Complet! Complet!” and making shooing movements with his hands.

“He means, ‘full up’,” said the new husband.

“He means ‘piss off’,” said the new wife.

They spent the first night of their honeymoon sleeping with gypsies at a defunct sports complex on the outskirts of town. Well, not actually with them, and not actually sleeping. The gypsies’ generators ran all night, powering cable TVs. Their teenagers raced the perimeter, blasting Dukes of Hazzard horns. Cringing in their furtive tent, the honeymooners felt as tender as snails. This was France, where they eat those.

The croissants they bought on the way back to town could have come from a Four Square in Dargaville: they were devoid of transformative, yeasty powers. It was raining and possibly they should never have gotten married.

Nonetheless, they dutifully purchased the necessary safety items from a vendor in town. At the designated viewing site, announcements were made in French and English: follow the rules or you could go blind; we’re not kidding. The clouds began to clear and suspense crackled and hummed. Small children, who didn’t know what they were waiting for, hit each other.

Then the moon began to roll across the sun; birds sped like arrows to their roosts. A cool, accelerated night flowed over the trees and the grass and the upturned faces. As one, the spellbound crowd – children, newlyweds, umbraphiles – was eclipsed and erased by the theatre of the universe, and what a blessed relief that was. Bathed in uncanny shadow, they gazed at the gleaming rind of the hidden sun; they awaited the magic trick of the light’s return.