A sudden silence overcame the world that day, and yet… to no surprise.
I have always lived in a very interesting country, as the saying goes:” Do you want to make God laugh? Talk to him about your plans”. And so it was every single day. Maybe an unannounced power surge turning off or damaging the electronics or plain blackouts lasting for hours.
Lucky for me, it is still daylight. I approached my modest library and took my favorite book:” The Riders” By Joseph Kessel. I kept turning the pages as the characters took life in my imagination, hoping to be capable enough to immerse myself in the Arabic drama as deeply as I could to melt the hours, hoping to “time travel” this way until the electricity came back.
To my delight, I succeeded, but as I achieved my goal, and the sun started to go down I knew something was wrong. Too many hours had passed and it wasn’t normal to be this extensive. Using the little charge I had to consult the “Rationing” group (Yes, we have one to check which sectors of my city are being punished) on WhatsApp. Dread news.
It was a national blackout.
With disbelief I tried to calm myself saying It might last but some more hours or even a day, not knowing It would last for 5 days.
Time went by. And so did my mind. You wonder about a lot of things when you are not actively doing anything. You become spatially aware of your breathing, of your body… and the boredom painfully cutting your soul to pieces. I had to do something before the feeling became something worse. Quickly I got some pants on, a shirt, and snickers. Stepped down the stairs from the seventh floor where I lived and opened the entrance to feel the strangely liberating breeze from the outside world… more active than usual.
Where only hours ago there were only silent buildings and the buzzing sound of the air conditioning, now were filled with people in sandals and pajamas trying to make sense of what was going on.
"It's an a Coup!" Someone said.
"It's the government torturing us!" Another one whispered
"Aliens!" I said, tired of not knowing anything for certain.
I went to the basketball court in the back of the residence. There, young people like me were killing time playing basketball or soccer. I had the chance to see new faces as we tried to distract from the deadly feeling of being left on our own in a sort of personal stone age. Yet, there still was beauty. Without the light contamination, you could see stars like only in the movies, or in foreign photographs. There were so many, so bright, with a slightly purple background like in the sci-fi series.
And you might wonder… What about the food? The fridges were unpowered, we might have starved, but to my surprise, people shared what they had so we could all eat. It was better than just leaving it to spoil! Funny enough, I believe my mother and I ate even better than on regular days. Meat, chicken, and even pork and sausages.
In the janitor’s house, all the neighbors came along and with all we had made an exquisite soup. People lively joked and shared tales while eating and talked about the latest news. Turns out, out of my residence (that now felt like the entire world to me), people were vandalizing supermarkets, and stealing supplies from everywhere. Some opportunistic thieves even started taking electro domestics from stores. Lots of food for thought! Was stealing illegal if people were actually starving? and where was the police? Later I learned they were also trying to take food from stores.
All you need is to pull a plug to bring the whole civilization to its knees.
On the fourth day, we started hearing about reports of electricity being reestablished in some states. Late that same day, we could even hear the cries of nearby people getting their lifestyle back after days of uncertainty. For me? It was like a little peek into some sort of “The Walking Dead” situation.
On the fifth day, all the country came back to normal again. The residents were once again silent, as the last people downstairs started pulling the plegable chairs to their homes and the buzz of the air conditioners reigned once again. Now at the rooftop, looking at my city filled with light, I turned my head up to find the stars dimmed. Most of them were gone as if destroyed by our very light.
I would need weeks to take the dread feeling in my chest, that suddenly another blackout would come for us, this time forever. For a while it was a very concurred rumor, eventually fading like the memory of it all: The friendships, and even some of my neighbours faces.
Adversity can bring out the best or the worst of us all.
I was lucky, to have lived the best those days.
Images from pixabay.