Eugene Elliott

Just Like Sleeping

It was during the summer solstice when Seaver and his two daughters, Finn and Adi went to the top of the rise to watch the eclipse. Garrett, a man that Seaver had come to know, even before the first "cycle," endured it from afar under the slouching branches of a catalpa tree. It was the rarest of events and the first of the New Age. They brought with them the instruments of the mirror and the almanac. On a spare page taped to the inside back cover, they recorded the eclipse' celestial life: type, day, date, time, totality, duration.