This morning I have a Twilight Zone experience.
Just a few weeks ago, my
class read the teleplay of The Twilight
Zone episode titled “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street.” The premise of the teleplay is that an
unexplained power outage on a quiet street causes mayhem and murder. You see, the residents think the inexplicable
outage might be caused by aliens, so they turn on each other. (Spoiler alert: They are correct.)
With all the talk about
the Buffalo snowstorm, I have been thinking a lot about the electricity going
out and how that rarely, if ever, happens here in my quiet neighborhood during
storms. I’ve been trapped by blizzards,
iced in, lightning-stormed to near-oblivion, and had two microbursts come right
over the house and take out two trees on two separate occasions. All this time, I’ve never lost electricity.
At 3:40 this morning,
though, I am awakened by silence.
I like white noise when I
sleep, so I usually run a fan in my room.
It has been unusually chilly here in the Northeast, but I run the fan,
just the same. Thursday night I am still
in recovery-mode from our school open house the evening before, and I am
fighting off a nasty cold. I decide to
turn on the fan, turn down the bed, and turn in early. After hours of correcting mediocre papers, I
have hit the wall with a resounding smack.
I set three alarm clocks:
an electric one with music, a battery-operated back-up alarm clock, and my cell
phone. As I settle into bed, I wonder if
I should charge up the phone battery, but it’s still ¾ full, so I let it
be. The three-alarm system is not new to
me. I set the radio alarm, knowing that
sometimes the reception is questionable and it doesn’t always wake me up
fully. The battery-operated back-up is
in case the power stops during the night, but it is set about forty-five
minutes later. Waking to alarm #2 would
mean rush-rush-rush! Alarm #3 is set for
right after my first alarm goes off, forcing me to get up, walk across the room
a little bit, and shut off the phone.
Then, 3:40 a.m. hits. I know it is 3:40 when the electricity stops
because the white noise also stops, and I awaken almost immediately. I realize the house is too silent, so I open
my eyes … I … open … my … It takes me about fifteen seconds to realize that my
eyes are open, but I cannot see a
damn thing. I instinctively reach for
the light switch. “Idiot,” I say out
loud. I fumble for the staircase
flashlight. Unable to find it, my cell
phone and I make our way down the stairs and to the kitchen. I locate the small flashlight and use that
one to trudge back up the stairs to locate the larger flashlight, which I somehow
missed in my blind fumbling.
This is where I have my “Monsters”
moment. There isn’t any storm outside,
no wind, no snow, no loud crash of a vehicle into a telephone pole. It’s eerily black in both sound and
light. I think for a second that maybe
someone has cut the power. Maybe the
house is going to burst into flames.
Maybe aliens have landed and are causing me to go insane.
Get a hold of yourself, Kid.
I decide that a power
outage isn’t so bad … unless, of course, I forgot to pay the electric bill
(unlikely). I gaze out the front windows
and see some emergency lights on at the old mill buildings across the
street. I gaze out the side windows and
see some emergency lights on the buildings nearby. I finally look out the back window and see
nothing but blackness. It certainly is
dark out, and I wonder if the moon exists anywhere at all.
I find the old Yellow Pages
book I keep on hand in case of emergencies, and I look up the report line for
National Grid. After speaking to a woman
for a few minutes (No, don’t send anyone directly to my house. The whole street is out. Yes, I have a phone but please don’t call me
back. It’s the middle of the night.), I
discover that a small pocket of town, namely my street and one other, are
experiencing power failure, but it should be back on in an hour. I settle into bed knowing I have a
battery-operated back-up alarm, along with my still relatively-full cell phone
alarm. I should be able to sleep, right?
Wrong.
I start running through
the disaster of my morning should the electricity still be out at show time,
5:05 a.m. I won’t have heat. I won’t have hot water. I won’t be able to wash nor blow-dry my hair
(not to mention just plain old shower).
I won’t even be able to flat-iron the sleep out of my hair-do.
These thoughts keep my
brain ticking along with the non-electric clock. Tick –
I’ll have to pull my hair back – tick – and wear a headband – tick – so much
for getting to bed early – tick – I wonder if the neighbors realize there’s no
power – tick ---- I start feeling
like Ted Striker from Airplane: “Echo... echo... echo...
Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon... Manny Mota... Mota... Mota
After
almost an hour of this tossing and turning and turbulent thought process, the
electricity whirs back to life, the fan comes back on, and all is right with
the world. I reset the alarm clock and
fall into a light but brief sleep. As
soon as I get up, I turn on the heat and plug in the flat iron. I’m not willing to attempt the shower. My hot water heater is in the unheated
basement, and keeping water hot is already a struggle on a normal day.
In the end,
Rod Serling does not make an appearance in my front room to announce the
alternate universe, and the only alien-like being this morning is me and what
my hair looks like no matter what I do to it.
(Later, the art teacher tells me my hair has never looked better and she
really likes it like this. She doesn’t
know today’s hairstyle is one of electricity-deprived desperation.) When I arrive home hours later, the
electricity is still on, and all is right with the world again… except the
clocks. I still have clocks to
reset.
