Another power outage. The sky rumbles, ominous. A smattering of stars in blue-gray twilight.
In the flashlight’s mottled shadows, I think of my mother and how she survived various outages—our island is the last stop on an archaic power grid, after all. And how, even as dementia short-circuited her brain, she was fearless and faithful, in her beliefs; in the world itself.
I’ve been writing this story for years, a fictional dystopia of droughts and fires and outages. In the end, the characters return to a life of quiet simplicity. Windup clocks. Woodstoves. Books.
Disconnected by design. Like an island.
Beautiful. Well written as always. I’d love to read your dystopian story. I’m sure it’s my age (45), but there’s something so appealing about going back to a more mechanical and less electronic age.
I love this. And power outages for the exact reason you state in the end. Well written, lovely read.