The Total Eclipse

The morning of the eclipse i was one of the only ones planning to get up and go to work that day. They had declared a state of emergency in both the county i worked in and the county i lived in. They had put up these inflated tent-like command centers. The national guard was called in. People donated mattresses and couches for volunteer fire fighters and law enforcement to sleep on if they couldnt make it home between shifts and needed a place to crash. People rented out their air bnb’s and some just rented out their fields as a parking spot or a place to pop a tent. I drove by a field one day in which people had pitched tents amongst a herd of goats. Two days later the tents were in a different field away from the goats. I was wondering how that was going to go. Goats will typically eat anything and it looked like they had put up plenty for the goats to wreck or eat. Probably a miscommunication on the farmer’s part about which field to be in, i dont know. Well the clinics closed down and just left the emergency room open. The kids stayed home from school. The restaurants got rid of all but the food they thought the visitors would be most likely to order (mostly locally sourced stuff in an attempt to provide an authentic experience), people in more expensive neighborhoods hired security guys in white pickups with flashing orange lights to ride around and enforce the “do not park on lawn” signs to protect the tranquility and beauty of the grass on either side of the trails they normally rode their horses on.

Everyone pretty much expected a zombie invasion of some sort and holed up in their houses to wait out the apocalypse. Now if you took this day off you had to come in and work on saturday. I had something to do on saturday so i didnt want to come in and make up the day on the weekend. I had a plan and i was confident it would all work out. I woke up at half past midnight and got ready for work. I drove to fredericksburg beginning at 4 am while everybody was sleeping. I saw my patients, held documentation for the following day after taking thorough written notes on what to write about, and then drove out an hour before the eclipse while everybody was either driving into fredericksburg or already parked and looking at the sky. It worked beautifully. I drove 70 mph most of the way home while people were driving 30 in the other direction. Here came all the people who hadn’t wanted to pay $2500 a night for a one bedroom dwelling just to look at the sky for four minutes, pulling off on the side of the road wherever they could fit their truck, van, or sedan, popping camping chairs and donning cardboard glasses. I thought to myself, “good for you dudes. Nobody needs to pay $2500 a night just because people find thats what they can charge during a phenomenon. We’re in the middle of a recession. You pop those camping chairs my dudes. Who needs to pay for a room? We just need a square of grass on the side of the highway for 4 minutes.

Honestly, i didnt understand the hype. I saw the eclipse in october of 2023. It was interesting yeah, and if one comes to my doorstep, obviously im gonna look at it, but i wouldnt pay money to either fly or drive to another state to witness it. Ive got **** to do. Whose gonna watch my animals, water my plants, or earn the money to pay my mortgage? I mean, lets be realistic here, im supposed to drop everything because its gonna get a little dark for a few minutes? The essential workers were asked to sleep at the job so they would be there the next day. I thought this notion was ridiculous. The amount of disruption people were creating to witness a dimming of sunlight for four minutes…i was just over it. I mean, i worked at a nursing home for crying out loud. The notion that people wouldnt leave the house and go to work because we were expecting chaos…i mean those elders need to be fed and have their briefs changed no matter what and if the CNAs gotta show up, why shouldnt i? Myself and the speech therapist showed up. We got it done and headed home at the right time to miss all the traffic in the direction we were headed.

I will say there is a strange little detail ive left out. That morning at 4 am i was sitting at a stop light resting my eyes with my foot on the brake. I startled alert when my eyes noted the change from a red to a green hue beneath my eyelids. It was time to go. I opened my eyes and had a brief shock moment when i noted a giant spaceship sitting beside me at the light. I later learned it was called a TESLA TRUCK. It might as well have been an alien craft the way it was sitting noiselessly beside me with angular features and a thin red light stretched the width of it. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Were they right? Had the apocalypse arrived? Had aliens come to view the eclipse alongside us? Was the darkening of the sky going to be their cue to attack? The spaceship looking tesla invention noiselessly accelerated into the darkness and i turned left to continue on to work. It was one of three cars i would note on my hour long commute.

I stopped at the dollar general to pick up plastic spoons and toilet paper…the things i was out of. Everyone in there echoed what i had said. They didnt understand what the big deal was. They all told of the various work or chores that needed to be done. So and so was putting up a fence. So and so was fixing a truck. So and so was repainting the house and needed to finish before it rained. The resounding message was, life doesnt stop because something neat is going on in the sky. We would don glasses and look at it when it happened but until that moment, we had **** to do and as the guy ahead of me in line said, “i aint doing nothing different in my day up until that moment, nor after it.” He was buying a 6 pack of beer and he was the one fixing a truck in his driveway.

i went home and did chores about the yard. It was raining off and on. It was overcast so there wasnt any need for the cardboard glasses. You couldnt see anything with or without them. It just looked like a rainy day. I was on the phone telling my mother how unfortunate it was those people paid money to come out here and it rained. I said, “i dont understand what the big deal is. It just looks like a cloudy rainy day. I mean sure its a bit dim but the same thing happens when there are heavy rain clouds. It just looks rainy.” As soon as i said it, as if on cue, the light began to disappear until the yard became so dark i realized i could barely see my dogs. Not having brought a flashlight with me i quickly moved towards the dog run, wanting to be with them if all visibility was going to disappear. And disappear it did. In a matter of 60 seconds it went from early afternoon to total darkness. There wasnt a speck of light anywhere. A car moving down the road looking for a field to park in had its headlights switch on. Cashew was suddenly plastered to my leg. She was scared and trying to be as near to me as possible. Sili was nowhere to be found. I couldnt see her. I ticked my tongue and made a kissy noise. I walked a bit in the direction she had been when i saw her last, cashew moving with my leg to remain glued to me. Sili’s tags jingled as she noted me and trotted over to nose my hand. I couldnt see them at all but i could feel cashew standing on my shoe and sili licking my hand. Bi knelt down and hugged both of them near as i marveled at the totality of darkness. I would have sworn in that moment it was 9 pm. I had never seen anything like it. The suddenness with which darkness fell…. At that moment the coyotes began to howl. It wasnt yipping but long lonely howls. Both dogs were now standing on my feet. They wanted nothing to do with the coyotes in this impenetrable darkness without a flashlight or headlamp. I reassured them we were inside the gated dog run and that the coyotes couldnt get in there. I kept telling my mother in disbelief that it was completely dark on the phone. Since she was not in the path of totality, it did not get totally dark where she was, so i sent her some pictures of what it looked like right before all that could be observed was a black screen.

It became darker than this and i took a couple pictures but i deleted them after realizing i could accomplish the same image by just placing my hand over the camera lens and pressing the button. The coyotes howling was the trippy part for me. They really thought it was night time. They must have been confused when 3.5 minutes later it was nearly daylight again. They were all ready to send out a hunting party and then suddenly its early afternoon once more.

From the beginning of the eclipse to the last moment of total darkness the birds, crickets, and toads were silent. The chickens had all stood facing north east silently without scratching or pecking for seeds and bugs. They just stood there frozen like statues facing north east. Once the sky became light again after total darkness the song birds immediately started up, as well as the toads and insects. The chickens broke their trance and began walking about clucking and squawking loudly. The dogs ran about the dog run. I just stood there and admitted i was wrong. Id seen the sky do a lot of things but id never seen it do that. I was wrong. It was a big deal. Perhaps there was something to this thing everyone wanted to drive here to see. That was something else. Ive never seen it be absolute night time during the day. I mean, not an ounce of light. You couldnt see your hand in front of your face kind of darkness. I take it back. It was something to see.

So after all that, Thursday night endometriosis came to play and i didnt sleep for the next 48 hours. I had to call into work the following morning when i thought my boss would be awake and tell him i needed to come in saturday after all because i couldnt possibly drive the car in the state i was in. I spent the next day transitioning between the bed, the floor, and the side of the toilet where i drooled profusely like one does right before they’re about to throw up. I passed most of the hours listening to a recording about breathing techniques “inhale one two exhale one two three four.” Its not as if you can even watch anything on tv. All of your time and attention is spent on the recording of those breathing techniques on repeat. By the time saturday came around i hadnt slept since wednesday night and eating during this time is nearly impossible as well because you dont digest anything when you’re in that much pain. I had a slice of an apple here and there and a bit of water as my stomach would permit it. Better to get room temperature rather than cold. I had tried every position for relief, tried the hot pack, done continuous breathing exercises for hours unceasingly, sat beside the toilet trying not to wretch, cried, begged God for mercy, and cursed the medical system for denying me a hysterectomy until i naturally hit menopause, because that makes a lot of sense. Yes we’ll give you one when nature’s already done it for you. Lets wait till then because we believe you are infinitely pain tolerant and we’re totally dripping with wisdom. I had to wash so many pairs of pajama pants in the sink because i couldnt stop bleeding long enough to make it to sitting over the toilet. Its not what you want to do with your time while shaking and drooling like a creature but it must be done immediately or the stain will set in and you will lose the garment. Once washed out you drape the garment anywhere it will fit to let it dry and return to the side of the toilet to try not to vomit while listening to the breathing exercises.

After all that work i put in to avoid working the weekend i still had to do it. Saturday was an awful day because day two is not an out of the woods day yet. Your pain has decreased to the point where you can drive a car and might not throw up or be crawling on the floor on your knees while sweating profusely but it is still high enough that you have the occasional urge to rip your abdomen apart with your bare hands and burn everything to the ground as retribution for society’s endorsement that you should endure this pain for 15 more years before receiving relief. So, not yet part of that post absolute slaughterhouse experience where you forget exactly how bad it was and think you can do it again next month. You can only sub one day out for the weekend per week. I had to go back saturday, endometriosis or not. Strangely enough, all my elders i take care of can tell when im feeling beyond under the weather. When im finished with the worst of it, my nearly 100 year old ladies with dementia always tell me how good it is to see me myself again and that theyre so glad im feeling better. They usually remark that my skin has color in it once more. The poor things get very worried about you when you appear ghostly pale and are rocking, sweating, and impulsively drawing a circular pattern on your abdomen repeatedly while instructing them in exercise, at times from the floor in case you pass out. I’d like this not to keep happening as im a good worker and yet i cant market myself as such because i have to disappear for one day out of every month and appear psychotic for the following day out of every month, which is an inconvenience to any potential employer. It makes it hard for me to market myself and it greatly narrows my employment options for many reasons that aren’t fair or within my control. Ive explained this what seems like hundreds of times but the doctors are unmoved. The resounding answer in this country is no. Ive exhausted every avenue. I cannot have a hysterectomy in this country. I have 13 more days before i must do it again. Ive accepted that this is just my cross to bear. For 48 hours each month i will not sleep or digest food and for 24 hours i will just struggle to maintain consciousness and stave off vomiting. That is my lot in life and theres nothing to do now but accept it. But if they ever invent a way to bless doctors with this problem, im going to wave that wand a million times and bless them with lesions on their bladders, spleens, kidneys, lungs, livers, and cervix’s. Then im going to drop them off next to a toilet with a packet of birth control and a gallon jug of water. I’ll tell them they’ll feel much better if they just jog more, drink plenty of water, and birth control, birth control, birth control. When they protest that they have to get to the hospital and do all sorts of important scheduled surgeries ill tell them that im sorry and i wish i could help them but i just cant. Then i’ll bill them $2,000 for my professional advice. I’ll send them home with a pamphlet about a surgery they can elect to have done that must be repeated every five years, comes with a 6 week recovery period with mandatory lifting precautions each time, and begins climbing a gradual stairway towards absolute ineffectiveness the moment the procedure is done.

When i close my eyes at night i dont dream about the death of my doctors. I dream about the wash of realization over their faces if i could just inflict them with this pain for 48 hours once.

Oh yeah, i almost forgot to finish the story. So, this is what the rest of Texas was doing whilst i was dealing with endometriosis post eclipse:

Apparently at some point they stopped allowing new cars onto the highway in kerrville and began routing the rest of the traffic to surrounding towns to get out. Once the eclipse was over, everybody left.

I will say this. When i heard people were going to clear out the grocery stores and empty the gas pumps in our towns, i thought that was really selfish. I wouldnt drive to see a phenomenon. I have work to do on the homestead that doesnt allow me to up and leave and a day job i need to go to. However, if i did chase a phenomenon to a different state as a tourist, i would bring my own food and gas up before arriving so as not to completely deplete a place of all its resources and totally disrupt the lives of the locals. And i was so f***ing proud when they did just that. All these people were prepared for them to completely clean us out of all our resources without any care for how we were going to live in the aftermath and not one of these people took our groceries. They brought their own. And all of the last minute drivers came with full tanks of gas. The grocery stores were void of people on eclipse day, and they had told us we should stock pile food in the pantry because the outsiders were going to buy it all during eclipse week. They were all pretty peaceful and brought their own supplies. They came, they looked, and they left.