This particular solar eclipse had been publicised as a once-in-a-lifetime event. The particular position in the sky, the season, the clear weather and the predicted solar flares would mean a perfect circle of fire floating amidst a sea of aurora above glacier-tipped mountains. The statistics were mind-bending. One cosmologist had explained that the next time this happened, Polaris would no longer be the North Star, having been replaced because of shifts in the axis of the Earth by the binary system of Gamma Cephei. An eclipse exactly like this may, in fact, never be repeated before Polaris resumed its title 26,000 years later - and even then it could not quite be the same, as Polaris would not achieve such closeness to the celestial pole during that cycle as it had during this one.
Austen knew all of this because she had for some years been trying to take an interest in the heavens. She had found herself in a break or lapse from her poetry and her writing; and with the loss of that surety of occupation she was perhaps looking for certainty elsewhere. She had found that the stories of the stars comforted her, even the tragedies - Orion’s sad end at the sting of Scorpio, or the tale of the ill fated astronomer Guillaume le Gentil in the 1760s, who travelled for over 10 years to observe a single planetary event, only to be defeated by a cloud.
These maudlin tales were in her thoughts as her footsteps crunched the snow of the observation platform underfoot. A check of her watch told her there were still a great many minutes until the allotted time. The platform had not filled up; tickets to view it from here had been sparse and exclusive.
“Austen?” a gruff voice said from over her shoulder. She turned. Under his parka hood and new grey beard, it took her a moment to recognise who it was - but the thick eyebrows triggered a memory.
“Carlos!”, she exclaimed, for indeed it was. “I… hello! What are you doing here?”
A snort.
“Same thing as you I expect. I’ve come to stare at the sun.”
“Oh! I… didn’t know this kind of thing interested you?”
“It doesn’t, as a rule. But I was offered a ticket. Chae-Won was apparently sent one in her role as eminent Professor, and when Sebastian spoke to her about it she remembered me for some reason. Who knows why. Seemed too special to pass up.”
Austen felt a twinge of hurt at the revelation that Chae-Won, whom she had sat with and spoke to about her new pursuit of stargazing, had not remembered her instead. She held it for a second, then let it go. Maybe Chae-Won had thought that she would already have a ticket? Maybe something at that moment had reminded her of Carlos? One, sadly, couldn’t know these days.
“Good.. good to see you here, though.” Carlos bulled on, somewhat awkwardly. “I meant to call. Or to actually respond to one of your calls. Never did, I know.”
The two of them looked at each other in silence for a moment. Austen didn’t quite know what to say - so she smiled and made a gesture inviting him to come with her further onto the platform, towards the sun-ward rail. On the way, cups of hot chocolate and mulled wine were available, and they took some - chocolate for her, and wine for him.
“It’s ok, Carlos,” Austen finally said, when she had taken a sip and gathered her thoughts. “I know you must have been hurt, after ‘Ani’s funeral. Hurting. Needed some space, I suppose.”
“Mm,” he grunted back. “You’re right there. Hurt, I suppose.”
The platform was filling up. In one corner, surrounded by low heaters to keep their hands warm, a small orchestra started playing. The tones were low and gentle. It was uplifting, mysterious, and atmospheric without being intrusive; a well selected piece, timed to crescendo during the eclipse itself. It also meant it was starting soon; Austen checked her dark glasses and glanced upwards; sure enough, a few strands of gleaming green flecked the sky.
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Carlos suddenly let out a whoof of air.
“You probably deserve more of an apology, Austen. I haven’t been a good friend in years.”
“It’s OK. It’s hard.”
“No, Austen, being… decent, shouldn’t, shouldn’t need an, you shouldn’t be able to give an excuse. Juanita would tell me off, say something acid.”
The words seemed to be coming out in a rush, his voice low. He glanced at the sky. Austen got the impression he was saying things he had imagined saying before, a conversation - or at least monologue - already played out in his imagination. It was now being hurried out before the eclipse started or before his nerve broke; whichever came first.
“The truth is… I have been angry, Austen. Angry for a long time. Maybe my whole life. When Abraham died, though, it really got to me. Brought it all out. Made me mad, or just, I mean, pulled it all to the surface. How dare he. How dare they. How dare the world take friends from me, take parents, take my sister. How dare it rob me like this.
“And… how dare others not have to go through this, and not really know what they have. Look at me, talk to me like I’m special, or brave, or even - sometimes - say they envy me. Like I have something they don’t, rather than get, get that I, we’re, just losing things. Hah, I’m angry. I’m angry.”
The last few words were tinged with a snarl, or a growl. Something threatening, Austen thought. A threat of action, a promise of passion, or of violence.
Carlos, though, seemed to renege on that threat - at least for now. His hands, gripping the rail, lifted, and, not seeming to know where to go, were shoved into the pockets of his coat. His shoulders hunched and his posture became tense and rigid.
Austen didn’t know what to say. The music had started to swell; soon talking would ruin the moment. But she felt a desperate drive, a need to say something; not to leave that as the end, the last words before the dark. She tried to talk without thinking.
“I, I’m sorry Carlos. I know. It’s bad. I… can’t say that I’m angry. But I understand, I think. I’m not angry. I’m… I’m scared. To be not-me. To know that my voice will be gone. To know that things I write, I make, I do, are going to fade away without me. And… and that’s fine, the fading, it’s fine, they’re just things, but I’ll never know, they’ll all be stories I don’t get to see the end of. For me, they’ll be forever unfinished. And neither will my friends.
“And so any time I start writing or doing, I just, I just start to feel… Why start it, when it won’t be finished? Why be ambitious, when there’s no way to succeed, to give and keep giving? Anything I make, everything which isn’t fleeting, is, is incomplete. I’m incomplete, with respect to them.. It saps from me, it saps meaning. I’m… drained and made helpless.”
She realised she was crying. Carlos turned to look at her, and in his gaze she saw understanding. His hand found hers, and the grip steadied the both of them.
The eclipse started, and to the sounds of strings fire danced across the sky. For a brief moment, the sun was a golden ring, sinking irretrievably into the verdant algae of some vibrant pool. Austen spared a second to glance at the faces of the people around them, and saw the light reflected off tears moistening the eyes of many of those young, immortal strangers. They felt transcendentally blessed, perhaps, to see something like this, something which they would never see again.