She believed that life was a fairy tale in which only the most beautiful stories should be told, regardless of the fact that the brave Scheherazade told the cruel king 1001 a beautiful fairy tale of famous heroes of the Arab world led by Ali Baba, Aladdin, Sinbad Mornar, Hassan, greedy Abdullah and inevitable powerful spirits.

She would probably have taken her life if she hadn’t always interrupted the story before the end, to be sure she would continue it the next day and start a new one, so she would come to the king every night to tell her the story and turn the eclipse of her life into a new day.

I know, you must be wondering now: “What has Scheherazade and her fairy tales got to do with the eclipse of the Sun or the Moon?”

Yes, they probably don’t, but I’m the daughter of the Moon, and on the nights when the Moon lets its stars go for a walk, I look for words for verses and stories that one day the Moon could tell us all before bed. I would like to be as resourceful and sweet-spoken as Scheherazade, so let me tell you a story about, say, the friendship of the Moon and the Sun.

I know you expect me to start a fairy tale with the words THERE WAS ONE DAY THE MOON AND THE SUN. No, I can’t do that, because how could a fairy tale have a happy ending if the Moon and the Sun were in it, because they should always be there with us, in every hope of our life, the love we feel for the planet Earth, all living beings on to whom that perfect fairy tale lives. They should be reflected in streams, rivers, lakes, seas, clouds in the sky, in raincoats that feed thirsty fields, canopies in which merry birds sing…

Therefore, one day the Sun and the Moon met. It was an unexpected encounter, but for such a gentleman nothing was unexpected. The eclipse lasted 3 minutes and 38 seconds. There was enough time to shake hands, to kiss, because they were not threatened by the Covid 19 pandemic and they did not need masks and social distance. In those nearly four minutes, they exchanged countless questions worried about planet Earth. They presented ideas on how to save what could have been saved and, waving rays of hope, continued on their way.

Believe me, they found a happy solution for all of us and don’t ask me to tell you what I heard during their conversation, because I know that if I don’t tell the fairy tale to the end, develop your imagination and save me for a new day and a challenge for another story.

Dijana Uherek Stevanović