Power Sabotaged : Part 1 : The Power Cut

Power Sabotaged
A New Life For Sheila

Part 1 : The Power Cut

Sheila was watching her favourite soap opera, the one in which two characters who were made for each other tried in turn to find each other’s love, but each time for some reason one or both of them pretended they had no feelings for each other, so they danced around each other many times, mutually attracted to each other but in denial about the feelings they had. They played out their passions, marrying or consorting with ill matched characters, which only they were blind to. Finally (or was it to be final?), the lovers revealed their true feelings once again, and the screen kiss began. The TV power was cut and the scene disappeared. Simultaneously the light went off. She swore to herself; there was no one else in the house. She had just been getting carried away by the scene, had been looking forward to it all evening, and now it was happening, the programme was interrupted. She expected the TV to come back on almost immediately; it usually did when there was a break in transmission. But of course this wasn’t just the TV the lights were off too. It must be a power cut, not just the TV. Hopefully a fuse might have blown for some reason and all she would need to do was locate the trip switches. It was a while since she’d had to do this, but she had a dim memory of there being trip switches in a cupboard, and all she would have to do was to put them back on.

‘Now which cupboard is it?’ she asked herself, trying to remember. It was pitch black however. She cursed that she had completely drawn the curtains. There wasn’t even a chink of light. She hoped that all her lights had not been affected. She would have to make sure when she went into the other rooms, and the fridge, would that still be on?

Feeling her way she stepped slowly towards the kitchen, banging her knee on a small table she had amazingly forgotten was there, in her own home, which she had lived in for so long. Short pain gave way quickly to anger at herself for forgetting the table, then her frustration with the unpleasantness of the situation returned. Why was this happening to her now, just when the programme she was watching became so exciting? It was just her luck.

Candles? She couldn’t see to find the cupboards where they might be. She wished she’d got some candles. Possibly she did have some, but probably she did not. She’d probably got rid of them as nonessential in some clear out a while back. She remembered she’d been watching one of those programmes about redecorating or restyling people’s houses. Presenters came in to judge whether the houses were modern enough or whether they were tasteful and cool, or whether they would be attractive enough to potential buyers. They advised on redecorating, after the all important first stages of ‘getting rid of unnecessary clutter’. Volunteer householders were routinely berated, and even made fun of, for holding onto personal items in large quantities which could be construed as clutter. She thought she could remember now, considering that because she’d not had occasion to use her old candles, which had been kept in the corner of a cupboard for more than 5 years, that they were quite unnecessary to her modern and efficient life, and should therefore be thrown away. If there were any left in the house she didn’t know where they were.

Looking through the curtains all lights in the district appeared to be off, except for one or two generator lights in distance. Obviously a power cut! She remembered there had been a power cut in America some time ago which knocked out the whole Northeast region for a day or two, or was it longer. She hoped it was not one of those because she had got no candles and couldn’t see a thing. She wished now that she was more prepared, but there hadn’t been a power cut for such a long time here. She could hardly remember when she had last experienced one. Partly she felt some relief that she was not the only one suffering from loss of power because that meant there would be no point in attempting to fiddle with anything she didn’t understand. She hated messing around with electricity because she didn’t understand it. The power would no doubt be back on soon. The experts would sort it all out and she wouldn’t have to do a thing. She had confidence everything would be back to normal soon.

She was aware that she would have to find some more food. Her fridge stocks were getting low. The contents were beginning to smell and she had already thrown out some meat. Even the tomatoes and cheese were going off. She hadn’t had a drink of milk in a couple of days. She had a headache and she knew she wasn’t eating properly. She’d been out to the local supermarket and scouted round the neighbourhood during the daytime yesterday, but all the food had been taken by people more aware of the severity of the situation they all found themselves in. The lucky ones had taken what they wanted in the early stages of this crisis, while she had stayed meekly at home, in the belief that her favourite soap operas would come flashing back onto the screen at any moment, and everything would be returned to normal. It hadn’t happened , not yet at any rate. The food was running out and she was becoming very frightened, and so were all her neighbours. Some of them had said this morning that there were still food stocks at the big superstore over the hill. So she set out, on foot because she had no petrol left in the car, and the bus system had stopped running at the same time as the electricity went off.

(To be continued )