So I'm sitting here, on the couch. Wondering what else I can smother in peanut butter because in situations like these I regress into a person that can't acknowledge how she actually feels and instead prefers to eat her feelings like any self-respecting person that grew up in the Midwest. It's also the only thing keeping me from creating a list in my head of all the possible ways this situation will lead to my untimely death, so the extra cardio I'll need to do tomorrow will be worth it. Tall taper candles that I never light in normal circumstances are burning on every flat surface. I'm too focused on trying to quell the urge to create that list of wild, fatal deaths to care that they're coating the glass candlesticks they're in with wax.
7:57pm
It's still way too dark in here even with all these candles. I'm now even more impressed by Abraham Lincoln if this is the amount of light dude read by at night. I would have given up and fried something in a skillet if I were him. And then smothered it in peanut butter, obviously. The trees are slapping and cracking against the windows, the wind groans and clears its throat like an old man just getting out of bed as I walk to the other side of the apartment. Where are the batteries? I fumble in the dark hollow of the storage closet. Why don't I actually make sure my flashlights work in an emergency? I put one flashlight on the bookshelf, another in the bedroom, and the third I've decided to leave near me to help navigate around corners and freak myself out when I go into the bathroom and the light catches in the mirror in an unexpected way. I still can't decide what to do with the peanut butter but I've ruled eating it straight out of the jar to be a little too desperate at this point, even if my cat is the only one to witness it.
8:04pm
8:04pm
I separate the blinds with two fingers, press my nose through them like a sleuth in a film noir looking out for the cops. Didn't they call them 'the heat' back then? The power company has to be here by now. Sirens and flashing lights catch the wind's tail and strangle the night air. Blue and red lights splash across the obnoxiously large Harley Davidson building up the block. The water in the pool is cascading unnaturally over the sides, rippling uncomfortably.
8:17pm
We're up to 36 minutes and I'm completely resolved to the fact that I'll never have electricity again. But maybe the dark isn't so bad. Not having electricity would probably lend itself well to the learning of new skills. Like cooking using only a cigarette lighter and using our book collection as kindling to keep warm in the winter. Maybe the dark is better. Maybe it is good. Maybe it does love me and my peanut butter. Is this what Stockholm syndrome is like?
8:37pm
I am alone. Alone, on this dark, sullen island and no one is coming. It's just me and my peanut butter. It will be me and it together against this cruel, fickle world. We don't need anyone. We don't need the luxury of text messaging, or microwaving or electric toothbrushing. Electricity is for the weak! We are champions of the dark! We approach the night like wolves! Wolves that howl proudly into the cloak of blackness that shrouds their prey, we....
Oh, wait. All the lights just came back on. Thank God because, seriously, I don't even like peanut butter.
