Blackout

The sound of the fan stopping woke me up this morning. The swishing blades were still barely moving when I looked at my bedside clock and saw that the power had gone off. How magnified are my senses these days with the boutique chemicals rambling around my medula oblongata. Sounds do not awaken me. The silence is what lassoed my attention.

I sit on the edge of the bed and look out the open window. It is raining. The Sunday paper is lying in the driveway, too close to the gutter. It is double wrapped in plastic, but history has proven that it will get soaked if left to sit as the water rises. I hate trying to read a wet newspaper, so I put my pants and socks on and pad downstairs in the semi darkness. My wife is still asleep, but the cats - who have been waiting impatiently for someone to arise and feed them - follow me down the stairs. The battery-powered clock in the kitchen says that it is 7:53.

I retrieve the paper and then divide a jar of the expensive strained turkey baby food that the cats have come to expect for breakfast. We pamper them and in return they do not puke on the rug.

Everything we have is electric, so I cannot make coffee or read the paper inside. I take my morning mix of pills with cranberry juice and take the paper out to the porch where the light is better. I turn the overhead fan switch on, so I will know when the power comes back on.

We live in perilous times. Any moment, life as we know it may suddenly change because of terrorists or exploding volcanoes or raging atmospheric storms. We are on high alert. The brain is beginning to plan for an extended power outage: This time, I will eat all the Edie's lime-flavored fruit bars before they melt!

Shortly, the fan starts up. Crisis averted. I trundle around, resetting the digital timepieces on the microwave, oven and radio. Then, Coffee!

What caused the blackout? Probably we shall never know. I like to think it was Homer Simpson getting donut jelly stuck in one of the keys at the municipal light plant, but more than likely it was a burnt-out transformer. Somebody got some extra OT pay, the Edie's Fruit bars are intact and our cease-fire with disaster seems to be holding.