Writer’s Worst Outage

You’re in the thick of it. Writing on your laptop with the scenes dancing around in your head. While midnight creeps upon you, you write the perfect description of a ghost that can control plants. It lives in an eerie forest, mist swirling around. No sunlight shines…ever. The characters are in a distrustful village. They’re not allowed to leave. They’re blamed for a tragedy of history. Envy turned to bloodshed. They have to work else their souls will be taken. An angry village almost takes a knife to a girl’s eyes, he stops, but the girls screams inside. You’re nearing the end of the scene. You’re quite proud of your work, then…

Black.

Your bedroom goes completely dark. You freeze up. Just you and the glow of your laptop–thank God it has a working battery. Your scene is safe, but what happened? Two beeps come from the other room. Your game systems, you realize, turning on after being “pulled” from the power source. A knot tightens in your stomach. The power had gone out. You can’t recall it ever doing this before. So, why? The question allow fears to creep up on you like a silent stalker. Your eyes glance fleetingly to the scene on the page. Ghosts? Thank goodness you don’t have any plants. What about a hidden society come to kidnap you?

When you finally look away from your laptop, you notice it’s darker than usual. All the neighbor’s blinding lights from outside you’ve become used to are black. You twist around for your phone on the nightstand, fingers sliding to find the flashlight. Good. The battery is at seventy. It was smart of you to plug it in. You message family first and hope you’re not alone in the dark.

Where’s your cat? Is the front door locked? It’s not October, but you’ve been in Halloween mode since September started. Was someone going to break in? Was this an elaborate plot by burglars like you’ve seen in the movies? But, you’re not sure what they would steal from you. You’re a writer, after all. Maybe there’s a ghost in the dark of the kitchen? Your home is actually haunted and you’re just now finding out about it?

Or maybe your imagination is just running wild because you’re still in writer mode?

Just to make you feel better, you grab the dagger hidden by your bed. You’d never pull the blade to stab somebody, but the stab of the sheath itself could cause damage. It’s time for bed, you determine. Time to turn writer brain off. With your flashlight and your weapon, you venture to the dark of the front room. It’s quiet, and so dark. No lights from the TV. No light from the stairwell outside. No time of day by the microwave past the counter or the stove in the kitchen. You let your flashlight scan every inch of the rooms. Funny how you were just in here not twenty minutes ago, but suddenly the power goes out and you’re scared to enter. Your light finds the front door. Good. It’s locked. Grabbing a treat to get your kitty to follow you, you lock yourselves up in the bedroom.

An email alerts on your phone. “New Outage.” You can’t help but think of a sarcastic reply. Another message pings. It’s your family, confirming that the whole block was out. Your mind tickles the idea that maybe some crime syndicate was planning a string of burglaries this night, but you remind yourself that your neighborhood isn’t worth stealing from.

With a long breath, you put the dagger away. What a time, you determine. What were the odds that the power would go out while you were writing a scary scene? You tell yourself that you wouldn’t have been so afraid if your mind hadn’t already been focused on writing fear. One last look at the locked bedroom door, and you scroll on your phone for a few minutes just to distract your mind.

“It’s bedtime,” you tell yourself. The power should be back on in the morning. One goodnight kiss to your kitty and you tuck under the covers and wait for dawn.