Spiral Bound Journal

A Quick Look Up

"Man, I hope they stay down there," Morgan muttered.

Dana peered at Morgan over her camera rig as she put the solar filter back on the lens. "Agreed. I'd like to think that a combination of Mountain's steps, laziness, and the eclipse arriving soon will be enough of a deterrent."

"At least while I'm up here, anyway."

"True."

Heavy footfalls interrupted Dana and Morgan's conversation. They glanced over to find Quinn joining them at the space on the top of Mountain. Quinn stopped and took a moment to assess the newcomer.

"I didn't realize the port-o-john lines were so long that you'd make a friend," he said to Dana.

"The truth is quite a bit weirder than that," she replied, prompting Morgan to nod.

"I'm Morgan, by the way," Morgan jumped in while extending a hand toward Quinn.

Quinn shook the proffered hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Quinn. I thought you looked familiar."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Dana watches your videos, and she showed me a few of them."

"Huh. I feel like that should be the other way around."

"Eh, not so much," Dana piped up. "To be fair, I found your channel due to my interest in the anti-MLM corner of YouTube."

Morgan's eyes widened a touch. "Fascinating. It's kind of rare to find someone who found me in ways beyond crypto."

Dana shrugged. "I tend to find things in random ways."

"It sure seems like it."

"Speaking of which, Morgan, what brings you up here?"

Morgan shifted his shoulders a bit. "Like Dana said, it's weird. I got chased by a bunch of fangirls."

"...I'm afraid to ask."

"Your fear is probably warranted."

"I got some photos of the women chasing him," Dana told the guys. "If any of them try coming up here, I can at least identify 'em."

Quinn shot Dana a look. "Do you think they'll do that?"

Dana tilted her free hand side to side. "I'm not ruling anything out. We still have an hour plus, so anything can happen."

"At least I have my viewing glasses," Morgan said while patting his back pocket. "If it's safest for me to be up here until the eclipse is finished, I"ll be prepared."

"Are you here by yourself?" Quinn asked.

Morgan shook his head. "I actually showed up with a big group of friends. I only got chased when I was separated from the rest of them."

"how big was the group?"

"There were four other people."

Dana glanced around the space where the three of them stood. "It might be tight, but we could squeeze some more people up here if needed."

Morgan contemplated this but shook his head. "Most of them are also recognizable. Might be too much of a risk."

"Do they know you're even up here?"

"Erm, no?"

"Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to let them know."

"That's fair."

With that, Morgan retrieved his phone from another back pocket. Dana took the opportunity to finish refitting the filter before putting the whole rig back on her tripod. Quinn stood back and watched his (somewhat accidental) eclipse companions. He noticed Morgan glance over at Dana when he wasn't firing out texts. For her part, Dana had no idea this was happening.

"You ready?"

Dana flicked her head toward the sky for a moment before looking at Quinn. "Ready as I'll ever be. Hopefully the clouds will continue to piss off for a little longer."

This got a hearty chortle out of Morgan. Dana and Quinn both raised their eyebrows but said nothing.

"Fair enough," Quinn muttered after a moment. "Now how to kill the last bit of time before the totality."

"Well, "Morgan began, "if I'm going to hang around here for a while, it might be worth finding out a bit more about you guys, unless you want to sit in awkward silence and get a sunburn."

Dana waved a tanned hand. "I'll need a few more hours of blazing sun in order to burn. The silence would probably be more painful."

"Point taken. On that note, how far did you travel for this?"

"Pretty far," Quinn replied.

"But to see an eclipse and Brutalism at the same time?" Dana added. "It's totally worth the effort."