We went back to Borobia around 5: 00.
Not looking for a place anymore.
Not anymore to see if it's a good idea.
No more counting azimuth, hills, horizons and clouds.
It was all done.
This morning we arrived in Borobia for the first time. We brought Mirko in his yellow vest, with a blind stick and a knee after surgery, to the information center, and we told them we had a blind friend with us. That he's out of surgery. There's roadblocks up there. And we need to go up the hill.
We sort of just said it.
No big deal.
Without asking for a miracle.
And they said sure.
They gave us the tape. Permission. A certificate that we can go where others can't.
Sometimes there's an obstacle and an open gate.
Borobia was packed.
A small Spanish village, which for a few days turned into something between a festival, a pilgrimage and an open-air observatory. The bands. Lectures. People with binoculars. People with blankets. People with children. People with cameras, tripods, chairs, boxes, eclipse glasses and an expression that people only have when they're waiting for something they can't quite imagine.
There were thousands of people there.
And yet it didn't seem like a crowd.
More like waiting together.
When we came back after bathing under Moncay, we knew where we were going. We knew we had room. We knew we had a warrant. We knew we'd get there.
And we knew in a few hours the sun would try to disappear.
The road was rising.
The dry landscape around Borobia was the colour of hay, dust and old gold. The hill was littered with people. Some of them were already sitting. Some built binoculars. Some came here and there as if they could speed up time by moving. Others just looked west and kept quiet.
The sun was low.
Still strong.
Still ordinary.
And it wasn't ordinary at all.
We took a place among the others.
Mirek was sitting in the middle of us.
In the command chair.
Classic folding chair with drinking holder. His throne. Yellow vest. A blind stick in your hand. The rest of us around him. Guitars. Backpacks. Water. Wine. The eclipse glasses. Dry grass. Stones. Dust. People.
And mountains.
Over all the mountains.
The open horizon we came here for.
If someone had looked at us from a distance, we might have looked like a strange Czech expedition that confused an astronomical event with a tramp.
Which was actually true.
We had a painting with us.
Wine as dark as a plan when it's gone down.
And since the Blind Sun expedition had to have its own rules, we opened the bottle with a blind stick.
I don't know if there's a better way to open the wine before the sun goes dark when a blind friend is sitting on the hill with you.
I guess not.
Before the eclipse, it was alive on the hill.
People played guitars. They were talking. They laughed. They shared food, water, wine, information, glasses, shadow, place, nervousness. Strangers talk to each other like they've known each other for more than a few minutes.
Maybe it's waiting.
Maybe it makes you realize you're all watching the same thing.
Maybe it's the sun that asks for attention so hard for a while that people stop acting like separate units and become one big body on a dry hill.
The atmosphere could be cut.
And I started orbiting the press.
Because if you're bringing a blind friend to the solar eclipse, it would be a shame if only a hill knew about it.
I told them:
We have a blind friend here. He came to watch the eclipse. If you want, come to us. You can interview him.
Some nodded.
Some smiled.
And then there was the Dutch state TV NOS.
They interviewed.
They asked us how we felt.
What it means to us.
What it means to bring a blind man to the eclipse of the sun.
And Mirek said it better than we could think of.
He said all he could see was a little yellow on top.
The sun.
Little yellow.
And that when the eclipse comes, actually, neither we nor he will.
And that's when we're all equal.
This was a sentence that suddenly called the Blind Sun made a completely different sense.
Not as a joke.
Not like a poetic shortcut.
But as a matter of fact.
We described the world all the way to Mirko.
The sea. Beach. Concrete shop. The mountains. Moncaya. Swimming pools. Street. Landscape. The women he felt before we saw them. We described every detail to him because we wanted him to have the most of the journey.
And now there was a time when the world would belong to him for a moment.
Because darkness is not a painting.
Darkness is a condition.
And when the sun disappears, it disappears for everyone.
Time began to thicken.
At first, it was subtle.
You knew the moon was already stealing a piece from the sun, but the world was still acting like nothing was happening. People put on their glasses, took them off, checked their cameras, pointed up, laughed, called each other.
Then the light began to change.
It didn't go away like tonight.
We know tonight.
The evening is slow and understandable. You know where he's coming from. You know what he's gonna do. You know, the world is just laying low.
This was different.
The light became strange.
It's like someone pulled the brightness, but kept the world sharp.
The landscape around us was not dark and was not light. It was wrong. Like a photo that was developed in another world.
Dry grass has lost color.
The mountains are quiet.
People around us spoke less.
And then the wind started blowing.
I remember that clearly.
Wind.
Not sharp. Not storm. More like one that walks by and says, "Now something's changing."
Mirek was sitting in the middle of us.
I held his hand.
And we told him every detail.
Now the sun is just a sickle.
Now the light is changing.
Now people are quiet.
Now the wind is rising.
Now it's weird.
It's almost done now.
I don't know if we talked calmly.
I guess not.
I don't know if we described it exactly.
I guess not.
But we talked.
I held his hand and tried to give him words for something that began to resist words.
And then it came.
Suddenly.
Even though we knew it was coming.
Although we had time.
Even though we had glasses, calculations, prediction, azimuth, maps, Borobia, observatory, permit, plan.
It came at once anyway.
Dark.
Not the night.
Not a shadow.
Not a shadow.
Darkness so subjective that it can't be described.
It's like someone shut down the deal for a second that the world should look what it looks like.
And in the dark, a corona appeared.
A sun that wasn't the sun.
Black disc.
The light around him.
Not the light of day. Not the lamp light. Not fire. Something else.
The silence was complete.
On a hill where there were hundreds of people, suddenly there was hardly any sound.
Just that moment.
Mirek didn't see the corona the way we did.
But he didn't see her the way a man would see her, who just looks at her and says, "Beautiful."
He had it in our words.
In my handshake.
In the wind.
In the silence of hundreds of people.
That the sun has disappeared to us.
And that's when we were equal.
Not because we all see the same.
Oh, no.
But because we weren't all good enough anyway.
For that moment.
The dimension.
About what was happening above us.
And then the silence broke.
Give it up first.
Then scream.
Then joy.
The kind of joy that's not cultivated. She's not pretty. She's not ready. They just fly out of people because they have to go out.
People were screaming.
They clapped.
Some cried.
Maybe hundreds of people.
I don't know.
You couldn't count at the time.
And then came the first beam.
The moon has returned the sun.
Maybe that was the most.
Not the darkness itself.
Not the corona.
But the first beam back.
The proof that the world is coming back.
That everything that fell apart for a minute and a half is coming back together.
That the sun still is.
That the day continues.
That we're still here.
And I couldn't take it anymore.
There were so many people crying.
And I still have tears when I write it.
I don't know exactly what the first sentence after the eclipse was.
Maybe it was:
I can't believe it.
Maybe:
"I'm gonna shit."
Maybe:
"That minute and a half was worth it."
Maybe:
"I'll never forget that."
Maybe just:
"I don't understand."
I guess it was all together.
Because after a while, you don't talk in sentences.
He talks in leftovers.
In fragments.
In what comes out of him when something bigger opens up for a while than he can take.
We sat there for a while.
No one was in a hurry.
Suddenly there was nothing to conquer.
There was nowhere to go.
There was nothing to plan.
It was over.
And at the same time, it was nothing.
Mirek was still sitting in the middle of us.
In his command chair.
In a yellow vest.
With a blind stick.
With us.
And I had a special peace of mind.
We brought a blind friend to a solar eclipse.
It still sounds like nonsense.
Like crazy.
Like punk.
Like something you shouldn't be able to explain to people who ask practical details.
But at that minute and a half, it made total sense.
Barcelona.
Guitars.
Sand everywhere.
Ford Puma.
Agony in Aragon.
Torrellas.
Beer in the sewer.
Ice water under Moncay.
Borobia.
Dutch TV.
Mirko's hand in my hand.
And the sun that disappeared for a while to everyone.
Neither do we.
Neither did he.
All the same little ones.
Everybody just shut up.
All blinded by something you can't see with your eyes.
The moment we were equal.