The Dolmen is several thousand years old.
Pierre is seventy-six.
Tonight the two are together, side by side to watch the eclipse.
It’s partial – the eclipse, ninety-seven percent – but the same can be said for both the Dolmen and Pierre.
The Dolmen has been repaired, helped. At least one structural support added.
Pierre has also been modified along the way, transforming from champion skier to successful book publisher.
And someone has brought a ladder if he wants to climb up onto the Dolmen.
For now, he is happy in a deckchair alongside.
The deckchair numbers only a few years ,but it too has been repaired – mainly with fishing wire.
Other people are here, small groups, picnics, more than one bottle of wine.
Pierre has shared in the emptying of a bottle of white, so he walks over to his car where a bottle of rosé is available.
The deckchair, empty for a moment is filled by someone else, so when Pierre returns I offer him mine.
In the end with both stand, Pierre elegantly attired in an immaculate white shirt and black tailored trousers.
Me, dressed.
Shorts and a melon stained t-shirt.
We talk of his apartment in the city that he wants to sell, he no longer needs to go there once a month to survey his empire.
Much of which sits in boxes of unsold stock that fill the corridors and corners of the apartment.
I have never had an empire, but its non-existent corners are also encumbered by stuff.
My repairs are long overdue.
The sun begins to head towards the horizon, sunset is not far off.
The moon heads towards the appointed conjunction.
The sun is eclipsed, we watch through glasses, boxes.
Someone has brought a welder’s mask, but disappeared into the bushes on the other side of the road.
No traffic is moving.
The day-to-day eclipsed.
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