Blackout

Posted on July 12, 2004 in Neighborhood

It was right in the middle of when I was standing on my two hind legs and informing Benji Adams that his accomplishments gave him no right to treat me and other users disrespectfully that, first, my computer crashed (due to too many windows popping up at the same time). I shut it down, ran a scandisk, and as soon as that was done, invoked a reboot.

What was in my mind as I did this? An apology first of all for my abrupt departure. I did want Benji to know that I hadn’t just bailed in anger. The computer went through its startup, I typed in the password, heard the music and suddenly the click of silence and darkness.

And what did I do when this happened? I laughed! I laughed at the absurdity of the Universe, at this incredible coincidence. I laughed because I imagined the wrong ideas Benji was probably getting in his head. I laughed because if he accused me of running away, I knew that was only in his head, that he could believe anything he wanted but that belief would not change the truth. I laughed because the silence and the darkness felt good.

I went outside and talked to my neighbors who were gathering on a driveway just down the street. I told them what had happened. They laughed with me. The darkness and the silence informed me that I was free — free to walk away, free to get out of the house on my own.

I briefly broke company with my neighbors to get something to eat at the first place that had lights on at the bottom of the hill. The immediate area was unlit, but then I came to lights just past Concourse Park. The restaurants down in Foothill Ranch were all open and I pulled into Arby’s for chicken fingers. I ate quickly — what can one do in an empty Arby’s other than eat? — and returned home.

The neighbors had brought their chairs down. Someone said that a car had hit a pole down in Irvine. The strange logistics of delivering power to our neighborhood had made us a dark arm of the mountain even though everything around us was lit up. Almost as soon as I heard this news, the lights came back on. My neighbors cried “We need another blackout so we can get to know one another better!” I promised not to be a stranger and went back in to watch the finish of what had begun.