“I don’t believe in the eclipse,” a woman said to me in the line-up for eclipse glasses this morning.
Huh?
“I’m just getting these glasses for me and my daughter. I guess I’ll wear them while I’m driving up to Collingwood since I’ll be driving at that time.”
“You can’t drive in those glasses; they are pitch black. I already have a pair but am getting another to McGyver my phone,” I said.
“Oh, well, it’s all nonsense anyways. There’s no eclipse.” She bought her two glasses and was on her way.
And that, my friends, is the way of the world these days.
“I don’t believe in the eclipse.”
What the fuck does THAT mean?
There have been eclipses since the planets were formed. There was a lunar eclipse two weeks ago, before this very solar eclipse, because, like the rule in Star Wars, there are always two.
I grew up in the seventies and likely saw the other major North American eclipse then. I’ve watched lots of eclipses though none as mighty as the one we’re going to see, apparently.
I watch them on YouTube, NASA, Twitch, and… in the Sky! You know, that paper moon with the lightbulb sun. NASA fooling us all every now and again.
During the lockdowns, I watched the movie Idiocracy for the first time. And then I watched it again. It was supposed to be a fun, stupid movie, which it is, but how is it turning out to be a documentary?
Humans have spent their entire existence studying what is above, so is below. We’ve created theories and explanations based on mathematical and scientific logic. We’re getting close to curing dread diseases and perhaps even living on other planets.
But the fly in the ointment is the newer generations deciding that math and science are opinions, that they aren’t real, vaccines don’t work, the earth is flat, yet somehow the belief in a Sky Fairy, especially a “Christian” one who only likes straight white people has grown greater.
In many ways, I’m glad I’m nearing the end of my life. As my father was before he died last year. We used to have long conversations about how ignorance is roaming the earth, is the preferred way of being, and whether it’s music history and theory, as he taught, or just basic math and science and medicine, as developed in my lifetime, so many humans just decide it’s all horseshit and make up their own thoughts and beliefs with zero basis in anything even close to reality. After all, why would they base their thoughts in history, or math, or science when they “don’t believe in it.”
Well, whether you “believe in the eclipse” or not, it’s going to happen on Monday whether you see it or not. Just like it did two weeks ago. And just like it will pretty much every year until the universe collapses or explodes or whatever might happen.
If you don’t believe in the eclipse, why are you buying glasses?
Things that make you go hmmmm…
Do YOU believe in The Eclipse?
My story “The Blood Countess” is in a new vampire anthology Blood Games!
It's not that I "believe" in the eclipse. I JUST EXPERIENCE IT!!!