Eclipse

[squirmelia]

The field is full of yellow, brown and ochre-coloured sheaths of edible but fairly tasteless morsels, although we strip them down and feast anyway. Attached to the prickly heads, is frondy material that stutters in the breeze. The heads droop down towards us, ready to cry their produce. And on the tip of each stalk, on a thread like spike, is a tiny eight-legged creature as black as the eclipse glasses, clinging to the upright structure. We flatten some down, showing that we are cruel beings, and lie side by side, between the ragged corn walls. We look up at the sky and the dark clouds that are between our eyes and the sun. Cars zooming occasionally interrupt our taciturnity, as does some awry bassed-up dance music. I curl up, clutching my can of diet coke and sipping the darkened mixture, waiting to be plunged into the world's shadowy womb. Looking up, there is a spider crawling across the sky. The black featureless images of birds cawing. A bee flying over my soiled body. We are stuck at twilight, looking at the windmills on the horizon, which are turning and turning.

And then. All of a sudden, although of course anticipatedly, the sky gets dark and the scene at the start of Generation X gets cold. I hold my breath..