When Will McGuire learns there will be a solar eclipse, he wastes no time getting prepared. But will his homemade viewing equipment work? And what will the nosey neighbours think of his efforts?
I wake from the incessant beeping of Jen’s phone. Andy, her brother, is messaging to alert us of an imminent solar eclipse. We find him out in the cul-de-sac spreading the news and alarming the neighbours, like poor old Margaret Potter, before he’s up in our room and telling us ‘there won’t be another one in our lifetime!’
Curious, Jen and I poke our heads out the window to examine the glaring sun. I flinch away, clutching my eyeballs as the black spots bloom in my vision.
‘It’s not yet. You can’t look at it directly or you’ll go blind,’ Andy laughs at us, his own eyes bloodshot and blinking. ‘You need to make an eclipse viewer.’
Andy is back and forth around the house picking up and moving mirrors, cardboard and sunglasses hoping to source the right equipment for his eclipse viewer. After rifling through the kitchen he locates his ideal tool.
‘A colander?’ I snort.
He holds it over his face like a mask. ‘I’ve heard the shape of it’s the best.’
‘Yeah, for draining pasta.’
Undeterred, Andy and his girlfriend Mel rush off to Clent Hills to get the best view with their colanders.
I expect they’ll both come back blind.
I’m excited. When the solar eclipse happened in the film ‘Dolores Claiborne,’ the entire sky suddenly grew dark. I wonder if that will happen today.
There is no need to wonder for Jen. She’s convinced that she’s seen an eclipse before and is an expert on the subject.
‘I was only four but I remember we were looking at the sun when the moon or spaceship or whatever went over.’
‘Spaceship?’
‘-Or whatever.’
We Youtube videos and find an idea for a homemade viewer that I’m adamant will work. I stand in the middle of the cul-de-sac with my two sheets of paper, with the pinhole to let the sunlight through, as demonstrated in the video.
We wait for something to happen, in the cold, susceptible to the ridicule from the neighbours.
‘Eclipse?’ Colin frowns. ‘Who’s had an eclipse?’
Colin, the old man next door, has come out to investigate. I’ve been trained to duck out of sight if he appears. But in the middle of the cul-de-sac there is nowhere to hide.
He peers over my setup. ‘There’s a hole in that paper.’
Glo and Paul wave as they join us.
‘It’s his first eclipse,’ Jen excuses my novice enthusiasm. ‘I’ve already seen one.’
‘John has a welding mask.’ Paul starts. ‘He said that he saw it really good.’
‘He’s seen it already?’ I’m confused. Nothing’s happened yet.
I pull out my phone. Google tells me the eclipse was at its maximum three minutes ago. I toss my two sheets of paper away. I’d have been better off watching it through a colander. I glance quickly at the sun with my sunglasses on and convince myself I see a crescent moon shape.
Glo and Paul return to their house laughing. ‘I hope you haven’t waited your whole life for that!’
‘I’m cold,’ Jen scoots back inside.
Colin is the last to leave. ‘Eclipse?’ He rolls his eyes.‘Sure.’
Is that really it? I stand in the final moments of my virgin eclipse, not sure what I experienced, just knowing that it wasn’t the ‘Dolores Claiborne’ I'd hoped for.
If I never see another eclipse in my life time, I don’t think I’ll be bothered.
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