Midnight at Noon: Part 1
A short story on how a solar eclipse changed the lives of four people forever
Preface: This story was published in my first-ever literary work — On a Lot of Things: A Collection of Original Short Stories. The story was inspired by my experience witnessing a solar eclipse for the first time. The day was the 3rd of October and the year was 2004. Almost twenty years later, it is the morning of another solar eclipse, and the memories return.
The news of the eclipse was received with foreboding. Everyone had heard so much of it but no one had ever witnessed it. This year, the weatherman said it would ‘pass through the town’ and there were several versions of what the eclipse would be like, leaping from mouths to ears, as the day approached. Some said it was going to be dark for three days and a lot of people would die because a curse had been pronounced on the town; others said it was the government’s way of shielding the many problems of the society by instilling fear into the people; while some others said after the eclipse, the devil would go on rampage and the world would come to an end — the last reason seemed to be the most popular at about the early hours of the day that the eclipse was going to take place.
“A brief period of darkness in the middle of the day about noon. There is nothing to worry…
