Tomorrow there will be a total Solar eclipse, visible from England, a rare sight indeed. A once in a lifetime opportunity to witness one of the great phenomena of the Universe, when the Moon lies directly between the Earth and the Sun, obscuring all the light for a few brief seconds. It will be amazing.

You’ve got the perfect vantage-point from your high rise flat, but you’re not going to watch it – you’re more interested in your precious television. But, oh, I forgot, one eclipse is enough for your lifetime, isn’t it?

It’s a clever thing, an eclipse, it’s ironic. The Sun, gigantic, powerful and ever important, can be blocked out silently from the world for a few brief seconds by a Moon, our one little Moon, insignificant, tiny and seemingly pointless. Revenge for the weak, for those who tag along. How apt that these two should coincide so perfectly.

You remember it as well as I do, I’m sure of that. It began with the two of us. There was me, the timid one who hardly said a word, and El, the normal, talkative one, who made friends easily, but stuck by me nonetheless. We were friends for four years. Until you came along, crashing into our lives like a drunken driver. You were clumsy and large, not in a ‘fat’ sense, but more in a ‘stodgy’ sense, strewing objects and people in your flamboyant wake. Your classmates ignored you. Within a week of starting our school you were depressed.

El, always the sympathetic type, took you under her wing. I wasn’t sure, to be honest, whether it was a good idea, but as usual I agreed with her to save arguments. I valued her friendship enough to accept you in our group. The trouble was, we had a System. It wasn’t complex, or even well thought out, but it worked for us. Until you came along, disrupting everything almost instantly…

“Elizabeth…”

“Call me ‘El’, please.”

“Fine. ‘El’. El, we can’t have lunch now because I’ve got homework to do. I’ll never have time to do both and I’d rather not get into any more trouble this week if it’s all the same to you.”

“No. It’s breaking the System. Lunch at lunchtime, homework at home.” I nodded in agreement. You gave us both a filthy look.

“You and your stupid system. It’s not set in stone, you know.” How could we tell you that it was set in stone - we'd carved it into a rock in my garden a year ago - without receiving another filthy look? “Look, I need to do that Geography homework and I have no idea HOW to do it. So I can’t do it at home.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need you to help me. So, will you help me get that A-grade? You’re so much better at it than I am…”

That was how you manipulated her every time. First you criticised her, then you praised her. You very quickly made her your personal slave, with me in tow incapable of doing anything about it. She did your homework and I did hers, with plenty of time to do my own later. I was a firm believer of the System we had adopted, and somehow I kept it going by myself. It was the only way I could tell her that she was still my friend.

Our neighbourhood is empty because of the holiday season – everybody has gone ‘down south’ to view the eclipse. The area is eerily quiet, in the silence I can still hear your overly powerful voice. You had one level of noise in those days – you were like a stereo with a broken volume control, stuck permanently on ‘LOUD’. We could hear you coming from the other side of a building because of either your bag being dropped continually or your shouting at people in your way. If you had the ability to sing you could easily have been a prima donna. You had the temperament and the vocal chords. You hated music, though; it was El’s whole life. She was destined for a career in the opera, or on Broadway, it was her lifelong dream. Until you came along and stopped her from practising, so now she works in a cafeteria.

I was thinner then, thinner than I am now, regrettably. El was fairly plump, but it was counterbalanced by her height. She loved her food and looked forward to lunchtime. Until you came along and messed up our System. Lunchtime became another lesson for her. You would bang into the room and throw a book at her. One lunchtime in particular is the one I’ll never forget…

“Here you go, Elizabeth.”

“El…”

“Whatever.”

“What is it today?” I was watching the whole scene from the unmoving lunch queue, thinking.

“Can’t you read? It’s Maths, it says so on the front of the book. God, you’re so stupid sometimes.”

“Well then why do you ask me to do your homework for you.”

“Because that’s what friends do.” I almost laughed with shock at this remark. The queue still wasn’t moving; I silently urged the dinnerladies to hurry up. El was rubbing her head as though it hurt, and closed her eyes momentarily. “I want it back for the next lesson.” El was flipping through the textbook to find the offending work. She stopped and looked at you.

“I can’t do all of this by then!”

“You’ll have to!”

“When were you set this?” She spotted a date at the top of the page of scruffy notes. “Last Thursday? Why haven’t you done this sooner?”

“BECAUSE, my dear Elizabeth, you’ve been doing all of my other homework all week. Now, be a darling and get it done for next period.” With this, you picked up El’s carefully wrapped sandwiches and walked off, inspecting their filling before throwing them away. I finally paid for my lunch and went to sit by her. She was staring dead ahead. I gave her one of my sandwiches, and examined her. She was painfully skinny, incredibly pale and looked nothing like the girl I used to know. She took a bite out of the sandwich, then another and another until it was finished.

I ignored my own rumbling stomach and handed her the other one. She looked at it, and then at me.

“You should eat.” I shook my head. “It’s your food, you paid for it.” Again, I shook my head, more determined this time. “Are you sure?” I stared at her diligently for a while. “All right, if you insist.” She ate the other sandwich in three seconds flat, and then stared blankly at the homework. She took up a pen and slowly began to write.

Algebra was never her strong point. Or mine, for that matter. Equations are apparently supposed to mean something, the variable ‘X’ standing for one thing and ‘Y’ for another. Every equation has to add up, and everything in it needs to be correct for that to happen, in the right place at the right time, so to speak. I suppose you could call a solar eclipse an equation of sorts. X equals Moon and Y equals Sun and when the two coincide the result is the eclipse. It all makes perfect sense now. In fact I believe that’s the only useful thing you’ve ever proven.

One hour later, at the end of lunchtime, you returned to obtain your Maths homework. El had fallen asleep. I had let her. I didn’t wake her up when I saw you coming, in fact I pretended not to notice the noise. She’d done a quarter of the homework and crashed out on the table. You were not pleased.

“EL! EL! WAKE UP!” She stirred and drowsily looked up at you, knowing the imminent consequences. “What are you doing falling asleep, stupid?! Don’t you know what time it is?” She nodded.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry’s not good enough, Elizabeth! Do you know how much trouble I’m going to get into for this? You’re going to pay, Big Time.” El leaned her head on her bony hands on the table and let out a muffled sigh.

“Fine.” You grunted unpleasantly and, dragging me out of my chair, sat opposite her.

“What do you mean ‘fine’? You’re not even going to try and finish it, are you?” No answer. You were angry. I was angrier. It was time I spoke out. I carefully managed to remove El from the table and propped her up nearby so she could see the oncoming scene, and then positioned myself in her original chair. Then I spoke. It wasn’t a thing I was accustomed to doing, and it also wasn’t a thing you were accustomed to hearing. I had been preparing the speech since the lunch queue. It was time for me to finally say it.

I cleared my throat; you were already curious, with that irritating, disdainful and sarcastic look on your face. Before I could start you interrupted me, as always.

“What, are you going to say something? Well, that IS a shock! Elizabeth’s little mouse friend is going to talk. What have you got to say for yourself, then?”

A pause. I spoke, shakily yet sure of myself: “I might ask you the same thing.” You stopped before you even began, but I was on a roll after that first sentence. The look of confusion on your face drove me onwards. “Look at what you’ve done to her. She’s going to DIE because of you, because of what you’ve done.” You actually looked affected by this, but I was not done with you. I wasn’t in the right place to finish you off. “You haven’t finished her off yet, but because of the stress and the lack of food, El is near-death. LOOK at her. Nobody should be that thin. She took you in, folded you into our group and how did you repay her? You used her like a machine programmed to do your bidding. I don’t know how you threatened her but somehow it worked. She used to be strong enough to fight you. Now she can’t even argue with ME.” Several other people had heard the commotion, realised what had been happening all those years, and shook their heads at you. “You’ll be a murderer.” The word sounded good in my mouth. “A murderer. How does it feel to be a MURDERER?” Soon the entire room was full of people chanting “Murderer, murderer, murderer…” The noise was deafening, and I silenced them all with a wave of my arm – it felt good to be suddenly so powerful.

You were speechless, yet still looked as confident as ever. It was time for the final blow: “While she was asleep, I did two things. One, I called an ambulance, which is waiting to take her away to hospital right now. Two, I told all of your teachers who did all your homework and the Headmaster is waiting for you in his office. And if the paramedics ask what happened to El, I shan’t hesitate to tell them.” With this, I flounced off and helped El outside to the awaiting haven of flashing lights and whiteness. And you sat there, deflated of your power and somehow less bright, less flamboyant and much less loud. I had won. I closed the canteen door as a growing mob descended upon you to drag you, kicking and screaming, which you were very good at doing, to see the Headmaster.

Despite my victory, though, something still didn't seem quite right. Yes, El was going to get the attention she needed, and so were you, although I actually couldn't care less what happened to you after that. El was never the same afterwards - she was weakened by it and had lost her wonderful voice. She tried to sing one day and it didn't work. She was croaky and off-pitch. I could have cried. She had to go into a rehabilitation centre, and after that she found a job that she could cope with. You destroyed her dreams.

However, I had destroyed you, and somehow, even though it didn’t make it seem worthwhile, it was the one thing we held onto whenever El was despairing. I HAD DESTROYED YOU. The feeling was wonderful. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I had been small and weak, and you were immense and powerful. I had overcome you in a few seconds.

It’s a clever thing an eclipse, it’s ironic…