Blackout

Posted on November 19, 2002 in Neighborhood Weather

If the power died right now, I’d understand why. The devil winds have been blowing off the mountain since dawn, slinging dust at the soft tissues of my bronchial tract; forcing trees to bend and sometimes kowtow. A sudden, stiff blow could quite handily slap down a power line.

Last night’s outage mystified me. The air crouched and didn’t run. I’d come close to finishing an article to be released at City of the Silent on the 22nd when everything dimmed or went silent — lamps, power supplies, modems, and monitor. I had not saved. One word — Fuck! — pushed forward from my mouth and, for a second, seemed to make everything flash on again. For a second, I thought I had the power. I called out a second time just as loud. This time the lights refused to flicker.

I called to Lynn and told her about the flashlight next to the bed. She fetched it and shined it at me. Stupidly, I’d forgotten that I kept another light right next to the CPU tower.

I went outside, met two of my neighbors though I couldn’t make out their faces; flagged down a security guard who didn’t know the reason for the blackout; and sat on the deck for about half an hour, scanning the sky for the Persiads. I didn’t see any meteors, but I tricked myself into thinking that a star directly above me was moving. After measuring it first against my thumb and then against the angle of another star, I concluded that my thumb deceived me. I went inside and read Dante by flashlight until the lights erupted back around two thirty.