The day the sun disappeared it wasn't a shock. It had been planned for. Mapped out. People flew in from all around the world to watch. It was an event timed to the exact second it would disappear. So no one was surprised.
The oooh...and aahhh... of the crowd was like a wave, or maybe like a pebble tossed in a pond. Rippling out. Everyone enraptured as they watched.
And watched.
And watched.
Finally one after another looked down at their phones to check the time. Wasn't it only supposed to last for a few minutes? How long had it gone on?
When it reached the five minute mark people started to murmur to each other. At ten minutes they started shouting questions at the experts in the crowd. Who were obviously no longer experts as they had no idea what was going on either.
The sun was gone.
No it wasn't gone, they tried to reason with the crowd, see the shadow of the moon passes between the Earth and the sun giving the appearance of...and here they would trail off because the shadow was not moving. The sun was gone.
Next came the frantic checking of phones to see if everyone else was seeing, or not seeing, what they were.
The sun was totally gone in Oregon and Idaho. Mostly gone in Arizona. The East Coast was still fine. Still waiting for their chance. Still excited to see the sun disappear.
It started to get cold. Really cold. Amazingly cold. How in the world could that happen so quickly?
People packed in to their cars and tried to leave. To go find the sun. But of course so many had come that leaving wasn't easy.
They waited. Packed in to their cars, their cars packed onto the roads, the darkness and the cold packed all around them.
The sun was gone.
They had planned for this. They had been so excited. Traveled so far to watch. They had talked about it for a year. And now? Now that it was gone? All they could do was ask, What next?
What next?
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