Unlike the dinosaur, when the lady managed to put on her glasses, the eclipse was no longer there. Bad luck. A hundred years since the last solar eclipse is nothing, woman. However, others, at 7:15 p.m., were already seeing it and telling each other: “look, there is already a spot at the bottom and to the right.” On the beach of La Mar Bella in Sant Martí, at 7:30 p.m., a loudspeaker announcement is heard warning that from that moment on, there are no lifeguards, and if you decide to drown, call 112 first. It is disappointing that they do not warn about the danger of the eclipse. Around here there are certified glasses, uncertified ones, sunglasses, and people winking one eye now, then the other, in a supreme attempt to deceive with their respective retinas. I am one of the latter. I decided to push it today and at the neighborhood pharmacy they didn’t even let me finish the stupid question.
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A home astronomy expert warns that we need patience because “between when it starts and when that union happens, it takes time.” The stone benches on the promenade have people on both sides. Today the sea is not the only protagonist. The other one is behind them, coming out and hiding among the buildings. There are people stopped on the bridges and jetties. Some raise their hands and remind me of the end of Sinuhé the Egyptian, before the hecatomb, but they are just doing gymnastics, and that is a symptom of what is happening. Some people know that at 8:22 p.m. the end of the world will begin and others seem not to care, that they will see it later on their phones. In reality, it is already perceived that, unless the heavens open and Zeus appears, a large part of the audience, with what they give us to keep us in suspense, will find the eclipse underwhelming. I check the news in case Julián Álvarez is already dancing sardanas in the Cathedral, when I read that in Israel they have dismissed the construction of a prison with crocodiles due to the animal protection law. It is impossible. Nature has nothing left to do.
The Sun is a prize of a thousand cherries in the universe’s slot machine
I stop at my favorite beach bar in the area, BeGay, and shortly after, whistles are heard as the light begins to wane. However, the beach bar turns on the lights in case we miss the Mediterranean salad and the beer. But the sand and sea begin to take on a bluish, almost biblical tone that at least scares me enough to remind me of the fear that peplums, Jesus Christ movies, or Egyptian films gave me, which besides fear inspired a terrible sadness: with their child pharaohs, their snakes and bald priests, their sun worship, their trepanations and mummifications.
For the sun to go away – now that around BeGay Shakira is playing, the world might be dying – is a childish and primal fear. Fear of the dark and the revealed truth that the Sun is, at the same time, a prize of a thousand cherries in the universe’s slot machine and a star, and stars go out and the big jackpots happen only once or never. Our Sun will also go out. When they tell you this as a child, they try immediately to reassure you by assuring that this will happen in many years. About 5 billion, in fact. But it doesn’t help. Everything will disappear. The past, the present, and the future will be swallowed as if they never existed. That is the evidence. If the Sun were eternal, we would be too as a human civilization. As a kid, that certainty terrifies you. As an adult, it doesn’t change much. And today, the Moon has already been covering the Sun for a while. I think there are two minutes left, but what if it doesn’t come back? I calm myself thinking it must come back because Mercadona has to bring me the shopping first thing.
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The first total eclipse I remember I read about in The Temple of the Sun by Tintin. I know of other eclipses. The news and entertainment coverage, which basically consists of keeping us tied to the epilepsy feeder, makes us go from Bad Bunny to the Pope’s visit. From there to the World Cup, the fires, Ceuta, now the eclipse, and soon, La Liga begins.
But of all the stories about the eclipse, I stick with the one I heard from cultural journalist Laura Barrachina on RNE giving voice to writer and divulgator Miguel Ángel Delgado about the French astronomer Pierre Janssen. In 1870, Prussian troops besiege the city of Paris, preventing the astronomer from going to observe the eclipse in Oran. But Janssen does not resign himself and is a resourceful man. When the time comes, he rises in a balloon and ascends to the skies of Paris, passes the siege, and travels over the Prussian troops in time to observe the eclipse. To his daring and inventiveness, we owe the discovery of helium and the beginning of The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, by the way. But I return to reality because my fear has been in vain: the Sun returns and a waiter comes to charge me who can say he worked during an eclipse. Applause is heard from the jetty. Very timid. Like “it wasn’t bad, like it was cloudy or something.” I think of Janssen who risked his life, the extinction of the dinosaurs, the Aztecs and their daily sacrifices to the Sun, and then I think of Nacho Cano and my bad mood goes away, and I start writing: everything will be fine.
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