Eight Minutes and Twenty Seconds

 

That's how long it took for the lights to go out.

Some 93 million miles away it was being eaten up by a Black Hole. None of us had any idea that those eight odd minutes of light were coming from a star that didn't exist anymore. Those on the other side of the world were already in the dark, but at least they could see the Moon, lit by the Sun for the next eight minutes and twenty seconds.

We'd grown up believing that the Sun would come up every day. There was always sunlight. Always a sunrise. There wouldn't be, tomorrow.

I wasted those eight minutes and twenty seconds arguing with a neighbour about whose turn it was to clear the yard.

Others around the world were busy living, making love, dying, eating, bathing, sleeping – just being human, I guess.

First, the lights went out. Darkness during the day – only the stars up above with no longer any Moon. Then the Earth rolled and turned as the Sun's gravity disappeared – we were drifting off to another place. All of this in the time it took to clean a window.

In the distance, I could hear screams, while other folks called on God, and my neighbour was laughing his ass off. It had been his turn to clear the yard.

bobby stevenson 2020