Confronting the shadow

When the lights go down: A photo of a 1919 total solar eclipse, from the Eddington expedition. (Photo: by F. W. Dyson, A. S. Eddington, and C. Davidson, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Original image here.)

We knew, our group, standing at the water’s edge that day and looking out: We knew that something would be coming for us out of the west. Our most learned seers had warned of it for some time. Most of us couldn’t have told you how they knew, not fully, but we knew that they did. A fe...