December 16, 2002:
Medieval darkness. Storm isolates my neighborhood from the power grid 21 hours. No lights, no stove, no refrigerated food, no heater, no dishwasher or garbage disposal or bathroom fan which clears shower-steam out a vent. No DVD video, no CD audio, no computer. No e-mail, no access to work-in-progress, no address book with phone numbers.
Portrait of the author laboring by candlelight. On the bed, black sheets, back-to-pillows, black messy hair graying at the temples. Purple felt pen, writing uphill into a notebook on one knee. Fat white candles on a table; the rest of the room is dark. Storm noises outside: sheets of rain striking large windows. No other sounds: no electric refrigerator motor or computer hard drives or airplanes or traffic or TV upstairs or little neighbor girl next door, as if the very fabric of civilization were so stunned that all things have become quiet, listening.
I want to write to friends. I want to listen to something besides my head radio. I'm a digital man now and am no longer capable of survival on any desert island, disconnected from the Internet.
Short walk down the block. Candles flicker softly behind blinded windows. The stars seem closer. The only bright light in the neighborhood comes from the "Convalescent Home", with its high-decibel diesel emergency generator chugging in the parking lot. The Convalescent Home is of course nothing of the kind, it's in truth a three story death factory for the discarded elderly, for whose expiry extra-bright institutional lighting is required at all times. God bless us, every one.
With a "CLUNK" the power returns. I expected a cheer to roll up the block, like New Years. Instead the strange silence continues, broken only by my refrigerator motor and computer hard drives. The neighbors are not watching TV. Everybody's waiting for something. What? Or are they simply listening to the storming ocean sing, really listening, as it joyfully hurls 25-foot boomers crashing against our cliff-face, confident it will one day tear us down? I dunno. I hope it gets the Convalescent Home first.