In the middle of the day the power goes off.
She is arranging schedules, a speaking engagement for an author she represents, and just as she begins to type a letter telling the author her tour should begin in three weeks, the house falls silent: the computer shuts down abruptly, the oscillating fan on her desk stops, the lamp goes black, the glowing red numbers of the digital clock disappear, the light in the hall bath goes off, the low hum of the refrigerator'three rooms away clattering' halts in the middle of it settling down, all the sounds she hears from time to time, but has learned to ignore, these stop too, everything stops and all at once.
It is if the house grew suddenly tired and decided to take a breath. And even though it's just the power that's out, it's just the electricity, it is as if time stops.
She stops too. Can't believe the silence'can't believe that in the middle of the day there is no power. She pulls the fuchsia folder with the important papers, emergency contact numbers, and bills from her desk. Grabbing her cell phone she dials the electric company.
It occurs to her for one moment that possibly she has forgotten to pay the bill. She has been forgetting things lately, forgetting important things, things she never used to forget, forgetting things she should never forget and unable to forget the things she should.
No, the electric company tells her the bill was paid. There must be a power outage in the area.
She's transferred to the technical department. She listens to the Bee Gees, the soft harmonies, asking, 'How deep is your love?"
She tells the woman she has no power, no blinking digital numbers on the stove or DVD player or cable box. The woman asks for her address and a cross street and tells her there is a power outage and they are working to fix the problem.
She hangs up, looks around the house for something to do. She walks into the bathroom and takes the basket of clothes she intended to wash picks it up and puts it on top of the washing machine. She walks into the kitchen, stares at the dishes that need to be run through the washer. She stands in the kitchen, wondering what to do. She takes the candles she never uses out of the cabinet and wonders how long she'll be without power.
There's nothing she can do. There's nothing to do. So, she does what she never does in the middle of the day, she stretches out across the bed, sinks into the pillows, lets her legs relax, thinks about how good it feels to do nothing. The windows are open and outside she can see the willow swaying slowly, leaves rising and rustling in the breeze, limbs moving to the melody of the wind. She relaxes into the bed tries to feel it'firm and embracing'accepting the weight of her body like a lover.
For a moment she feels guilty, doing nothing. But there is no power, what else can she do? What can she do about there being no power? Everything she does is dependent upon being plugged in to a power source, an outlet. She must have power to do what she does and there is no shame in needing to be plugged in. No, she must surrender, accept that she has no power, and she can do nothing.
She thinks of how she fought, how she fought to save what she knew had died long ago. And what is it about lost causes that make her think she can do the impossible and change their outcome? Hadn't she learned her lesson? Didn't she understand after everything no matter how empowered she was, she couldn't change how a man felt, what he wanted, how he saw things'even if he had promised he would do anything to make her happy. In the end she gave in realizing that some things are beyond her power.
In the middle of the day the power goes off and she understands what real power is. She stretches her arms wide then her legs, spreads herself out like a starfish, her limbs reaching into the empty space of the bed.
