This storm
This… storm
It was a storm day today. I slept late, but at ten thirty a.m. the power was still on, so I was winning.
I watched from the kitchen window as the garden slowly disappeared underwater, and registered new levels of fuck me.
I had a feeling about this storm, and it did turn out slightly worse than I expected. My neighbour thought he’d go to Castlebar for work but the road had merged with the lake so he had to turn back, his van not being amphibious.
A little overwhelmed. I went back to bed, and when I got back up again the wind had stripped the trees bare. While I had that — not overly-long — nap, the landscape had transformed all the way from summer to winter. The hard work of the spring had been completely wrecked in the space of one lunchtime.
This seemed to make Mittens depressed. She hunkered down in the living room but the gale made a hellish sound as it came down the chimney, like the roar of an oncoming underground train that never arrived, and I don’t think that made her feel any better.
I was finding the battering gales a little traumatic. And that’s when the electricity disappeared, with a ping.
Internet — off.
Dehumidifiers — not dehumidifying.
Heating — not heating. But I’d been making fires since last night so I was ahead of the game and somewhat toasty.
Water supply — going, as yet. It would last as long as whatever was in the tanks and the pipes I supposed. Remember not to flush, cos you don’t know how long this could last.
I’d bought a new gas bottle so at least the cooker wouldn’t fail me. But how do you turn on the oven without the ignition? I couldn’t even light it with a candle. The hob worked okay though.
So I put the kettle on, but the tea came out all wrong. A rookie error..
The landline phone still had a dial tone, but the people I’d pre-prepared to expect a call from me in the event of a power cut decided not to pick up and instead dropped me messages on Messenger. “Are you trying to call?” “I’m, free now.” As if I could somehow read the internet after the internet had gone away.
The unanswered calls hurt. I lay down again but my body was throbbing with anxiety. So I returned to tend the fires, who both needed something to eat every half an hour, and are difficult to re-light with the wind barrelling down the chimneys like a hissing demon.
Three hours later, a beep. Power back on. “Thank you,” I whispered. Thank you to the people who’ve gone out in this, to attach wires to wires, to make all the good things happen for us at home. Do they know how much we appreciate them at these times?
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Also appreciated was the voice of my best friend on the end of the phone line, her voice vibrant like a sprite, or a pixie.
Chaos and terror averted, I stepped out to obtain oxygen from the skies. There was an awful lot of it, and it was the supremely fresh oxygen that had travelled a long way to get here. I sucked it in.
And saw…
How the grass had taken on a whitish hue as though shocked of its pigment in one afternoon.
The fairy bells of the pale pink fuschias lying scattered in the puddles.
A large gap in the trees that wasn’t there before, and something white beyond. Is it a horse? No, I think that’s a house.
The sun throwing out a segment of gold, brightening up the sheep and the gateposts to attention-grabbing shades of white.
How the puddles contained the sky, which was experimenting with being blue, and kind of fruity… something that can only be done in the changeover seasons of spring and autumn, that special kind of light, those mystical tones…
It was extremely magic and extremely cold.
I went “uff”.
I said “hi baby” to every sheep, twice.
I tried to fix the electric meter box door.
I fastened the mailbox back up.
And looked sadly at the camping table that had been on its first amateur aviation trip across the garden before surrendering, legs akimbo, in front of the garage doors. Alcock and Brown would have been proud. Ish, Maybe.
I headed back into the house, knowing everything would now calm down go back to normal. Ish. Maybe.
The End.
For now.
