The day of the eclipse. We got about 98% dark (with added cloud layer (about 90%, remainder of last nights symphony lightnings which covered half the horizon); just 50km north it was 100%. Sloba's propaganda scored a big hit today: after just a few days of harping over all the media outlets, they convinced the people that the 2% of sunshine was more dangerous than 100% of it. So the same folks, who just few months ago stood outside and watched as they were bombed (even went on the roofs to get a better view, and some even fell off - by some counts, more died by falling than by being hit by a bomb, though that sounds like an urban legend in the making), stayed inside today during the eclipse.
I was in the city, patching an app at CD, and since nobody worked anywhere (couldn't find a place to buy bread - everything was closed since 10:30 and the eclipse didn't start before 11:30), just sat with the girls there, killing time. I didn't realize how they really meant this blockade until I saw them all pack their work, store the papers, shutdown the computers, and make more coffee - not going home anytime soon. Even their director came down and had a vinjak with me. The place on a corner, facing two sidestreets which both meet with the main street on their other ends, practically smack downtown, and I saw nobody outside.
After a while I got really bored, so, well, if nobody's working, it's my time off as well, I'm going home. I refused the next coffee and packed my shoulder bag (my floppies and workorders docket, printed in purple, the official color of Avai) and got off the chair. The dialogue was, approximately, this:
- Where are you going?
- Home.
- How can you go home?
- The same way I came here - my bike is still outside.
- But... the eclipse...
- Still far from complete, c'mon, this is still brighter than a cloudy day.
- But.. I mean... they said on TV it's dangerous.
- You trust Sloba's TV Bastille?
The city was completely empty - I drove my bicycle through absolutely empty streets, passing through a few red lights, driving middle of the road - and the cops didn't notice me (the two of them who were huddled under a tree just behind a corner to the main thoroughfare). Saw a total of four people and one car moving. Came home just in time for the darkest ten minutes, and it was sort of twilight, something like at sunset, but the shift in colors was somewhat different.
I've seen the crows finally getting down to the grass in midday - there's a part of town where there are always about 1000-2000 crows around, but they either fly around or hang on trees, and you never see more than two or three on the ground. There were dozens of them picking something from the lawns. Didn't notice any disturbance. The dogs were silent (quite contrary to a full moon night, when they start barking like crazy).
I don't know which experience was weirder - the mild shift of colors, or the empty town.
When I got home, even our street was eerily empty... except the girls were outside, watching the eclipse through double shades or the welder's mask.