Untitled (Blackout)

When the electricity went out, I was washing the dishes from dinner in the sink under hot tap water. I thought it would be okay to stop. First there was a loud crash outside the kitchen window but I was too afraid to look outside so I didn’t. A hush swept through the apartment complex and then I started to hear people calling out names tentatively, then louder. I joined in – I called your name, first tentatively, then louder.

Our neighbors must have found the people they were looking for because soon the voices quieted down and another hush swept through the building. I gathered up my courage and walked over to the window. All this time I had been standing by the sink holding a plate still dripping warm soap water. But now, walking towards the window, I became acutely aware of the way my feet, in black dress socks, scratched across the linoleum floor. Our apartment, if you remember, was not so fancy and it was not in the best neighborhood, but it was ours and I think that we loved it.

Of course the world on the other side of the window was as dark as the world inside and I could see nothing but different shades of black and grey and vague movements. Far in the distance a candle flickered in a window. It felt familiar. Things grew in wonderment and we felt like children again.

Nobody knew why the electricity went out. Theories were invented in makeshift forts lit by candlelight and antique lanterns – it was either an act of anti-establishment political vandalism or a fraudulent act of self-destruction or perhaps both. Alternatively, it was a small animal – a sparrow perhaps – who had either decided that it had become too much or had simply wandered down the wrong path and short circuited the system. It was the beginning of spring, after all.

Sitting on our knees on opposite sides of the coffee table lit by candlelight, I looked up from my laced fingers, looked around at the books carefully arranged on the bookshelves, the records under the stereo, the small potted plant by the window sill, all suddenly strange and asked “do you think this is a good life?”

When the lights came back on, people slowly began to wander back outside. The streetlights seemed so much brighter than before, and everyone walked slowly up and down the sidewalks squinting their eyes and using hands and hats and handkerchiefs to shield their faces from the bright city lights. You looked like you had just woken up and I put my hand perpendicular to your forehead to protect your eyes. Your eyes flickered like the smallest candle flames.

I had always thought that if there were to be a blackout, there would be vandalism, terrorism, broken windows, stolen cars, looted stores, violence, rape, forgery, betrayal, consternation, limitless despair, fire, smoke, and decay. But it was just the opposite. We wandered the relit streets together and it was as though things had gotten smaller and more intimate. We were all children again. Somebody smiled at us. Someone else offered us fresh strawberries. A shopkeeper stood outside his store with a basket of small chocolates wrapped in silver and gold foil.

I wanted to find out why the lights had gone out, but you stopped me, and it was better that way.