Eclipsed

Well, I wasn’t expecting that.

It’s nearly 4am for starters, not that you’d know it – the sky is as bright as it always is here at this time of year. It doesn’t usually bother me, this perpetual daylight, but right now I miss the darkness something chronic, not going to lie. Honestly, I’m happy I’m alone right now, nobody needs to see these tracks on my cheeks, it’s not a good look. I’ve still got another couple hours until Cyril gets up and at least a few more before Rupert rises. A nocturnal soul, Rupert isn’t really built for this place. He sleeps more than both Cyril and me combined, even more than my cat, Melrose, and he’s carved out of wood. Me, I’m more like the gentoos and chinstraps and Adélies we study here, barely able to manage more than a few winks at a time. I say we, Cyril spends all his time in the laboratory with his microscopes and honestly I’m not really sure what Ru does – something to do with petrels. I don’t ask questions – there’s just so much going on in my head already, from the minutiae of my own problems to the deplorable state of the world being plastered across the world's media channels twenty-four seven. There’s just so much wrong with society and humans have proven to be, for the majority of my thirty-eight years on this earth anyway, the most disappointing species of all. That’s one of the main reasons I took this job in the first place, to get away from all that – all them. It’s ironic really, I travel all the way down to the bottom of the globe in order to be alone and then, minutes later, another pandemic forces the whole world back into lockdown. At least my isolation was my own choice this time. Besides, I’ve got Cyril and Rupert to talk to if I really feel the urge for human interaction, although I don’t think those two really like me that much and to be honest, I couldn’t really care less. After all, I have Melrose to confide in if I need to – he never judges me like those two do.

We’ve been together years now, Melrose and I. Every time I look at him, I see my perfect Jack’s face and my heart is filled with love. It was our five-year anniversary the day he gave him to me. My cat, who I’d grown up with, had died a few weeks prior and Jack knew how cut up I was about losing him. He’d booked us into into a fancy restaurant downtown and then, right before dessert, he gave him to me, all wrapped up in a beautiful handmade box. He told me he’d actually had him for years, that he’d carved him all by himself all the way back when we were still in school. He told me he loved me and that I should name him Melrose, after my dearly departed friend. I was just about to embark on another research trip abroad and he suggested I bring the little feline along to remind me of him. I remember I was so touched; I think I even cried a little. I’ve had the little guy with me ever since – my piece of home.

I miss Jack terribly out here, I really do, but six months isn’t exactly forever, and Jack knows I always come home. He understands. He knows I need this, these expeditions – he knows how hard I’ve always found the world, how much I struggle with the banality of modern society. He calls it my annual ecological deployment, and every time I come home, he never forgets to thank me for my service. He does it partly because he knows it annoys me, being as anti-war as I am, but he’s not trying to be malicious – it’s all in jest – that’s just the kind of relationship we have. We met when we were just kids you know, so it’s just one of those things.

Jack calls me Barney. It’s supposed to be an endearing nickname, but I’ve never liked it. I’m a couple years older than he is and people used to tease us about that all the time. Of course, I know that him calling me Barney has nothing at all to do with that annoying purple dinosaur, even if others don’t. The truth is, Jack is obsessed with barn owls, he has been ever since we found one injured near school not long after we first got together. The bird sanctuary we took it to actually called me a few days later to tell me the owl hadn’t made it, but I never told Jack that. Jack used to tell me I was just like a barn owl because of my heart shaped face and long legs, but I’ve always suspected another reason – barn owls are the most common type of owls in the world and I’ve always wondered if Jack sees me like that, you know, boring, average. I’ve never understood Jack’s affinity for the mundane. He used to laugh whenever I brought that up – tell me I was being silly and quickly change the subject. No barn owls here on Signy though, thank God. Just me.

I love birds, I always have, but penguins are my favourite. A lot of people don’t think penguins are real birds since they can’t fly, but that’s actually one of the things I like most about them. Everyone says God doesn’t make mistakes – and maybe that’s true – but personally I just think he just forgot to tick their ‘flight’ box on his celestial computer. Either that or he was just in one his moods and thought it would be funny to attribute their flight to ‘water’ instead of ‘sky’, you know, just to see what would happen. Poor penguins. No wonder they’re such antisocial creatures, well, except amongst themselves. Did you know that if a penguin is unfaithful to its partner, the rest of the colony exiles them? I respect that – I understand it.

I can’t stop staring at the computer screen. I keep hitting the display button, turning it off only to flick it back on a moment later. I don’t know what I’m expecting – the picture in the body of the email to suddenly change? I don’t know why I’m doing this to myself. More to the point, I don’t know why he’s doing this to me – my Jack. I shouldn’t have opened it. I know better. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m happy for him, I really am – he always wanted this, you know, a wife, two point four children, a white picket fence and a mid-range sedan. Honestly, I can’t think of anything worse. Well, except for this. This is much worse. But I’m not bitter; I wish them both all the luck in the world. These tears of mine are not for him, I promise you they’re not.

My thoughts are interrupted by loud noises coming from the kitchen. I hear a kettle and the sound of the back door opening. I can feel the fresh air from outside creeping under my bedroom door. Cyril and Rupert must be up, but why would they be? Did they hear me crying? I remember the email again but this time my gaze is drawn to the top right corner of my computer screen.

My eyes widen with realisation and I hear myself audibly gasp. Oh crap! It’s December 4th. The eclipse – I was supposed to wake them!

I consider joining them for a moment – the smell of their coffee is inviting – but decide instead to draw back the curtains in my room and watch the darkness unfold on my own. They have each other after all, and seeing them together right now, lovey-dovey as they can't help but be, well that's only going to make me feel worse.

There’s a pain in my hand that I can’t ignore anymore, and I realise I’m clutching Melrose so tightly that the sharp edges of his ears are threatening to draw blood. I look down at the little wooden ornament.

“Judging me, are you? Think I deserve this, do you?”

If only it were cold enough to make a fire, I think. Wouldn't be so judgemental then, would you? Maybe you would. Maybe I’ll make one anyway.