Next is a signature black, to show the poles of my versatility, if you like. It was the darkest moment before the dawn.

A boy arrived first, with cluttered breath and what appeared to be a toolbox. With great trepidation, he approached the cockpit and watched the pilot, gauging if he was alive, at which point, he still was. The book thief arrived perhaps thirty seconds later.

Sometimes I arrive too early.

This time, I had come for a man of perhaps twenty-four years of age. It was a beautiful thing in some ways. The plane was still coughing. Smoke was leaking from both its lungs.

SOME OTHER SMALL FACTS

From the toolbox, the boy took out, of all things, a teddy bear.

After a small collection of minutes, the smoke exhausted itself. There was nothing left to give.

When it crashed, three deep gashes were made in the earth. Its wings were now sawn-off arms. No more flapping. Not for this metallic little bird.

Years had passed, but I recognized her.

She was panting.

I rush, and some people cling longer to life than expected.

All that was left was the body, the dwindling smell of smoke, and the smiling teddy bear.

The crowd did what crowds do.

He reached in through the torn windshield and placed it on the pilot's chest. The smiling bear sat huddled among the crowded wreckage of the man and the blood. A few minutes later, I took my chance. The time was right.

The man, in comparison, was the color of bone. Skeleton-colored skin. A ruffled uniform. His eyes were cold and brown -- like coffee stains -- and the last scrawl from above formed what, to me, appeared an odd, yet familiar, shape. A signature.

I walked in, loosened his soul, and carried it gently away.

As the crowd arrived in full, things, of course, had changed. The horizon was beginning to charcoal. What was left of the blackness above was nothing now but a scribble, and disappearing fast.

As I made my way through, each person stood and played with the quietness of it. It was a small concoction of disjointed hand movements, muffled sentences, and mute, self-conscious turns.

A final dirty joke.

Another human punch line.

I've seen millions of them.

He remained shrouded in his uniform as the graying light arm-wrestled the sky. As with many of the others, when I began my journey away, there seemed a quick shadow again, a final moment of eclipse -- the recognition of another soul gone.

You see, to me, for just a moment, despite all of the colors that touch and grapple with what I see in this world, I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies.

When I glanced back at the plane, the pilot's open mouth appeared to be smiling.

I've seen more eclipses than I care to remember.