Blackout

Once in a while, the generator shuts down momentarily, and the entire campus and the security station on the mountains just beyond are left without electricity. I'm not sure why it happens, but it's been happening more frequently lately-  nearly every day. 

Speaking of which, the lights just went off again! I'm sitting in complete darkness on my balcony, save for the light coming from my laptop, and the light of the full moon casting its glow upon the mountains in front of me. Eerie! And now the bugs are flocking to the only light source currently available- my laptop screen. Yuck. 

For some reason, whenever the lights go out, the residents of the apartments feel the urge to emerge from their rooms and step out onto the balcony, as if they were expecting something exciting to happen outside because of the lack of electricity inside. Well this time around, there is nothing spectacular going on out here, but two nights ago, when the lights shut off once again, I stepped out onto my balcony and into the ocean. 

So it seemed. The immense night sky was of a dim blue hue and clouded in such a way as to give the illusion of the deep sea. Sea foam-like clouds rippled all the way down to the hills, and with no lights around, the landscape felt muted and much more vast, yet enclosed. Infinite, yet bounded.

We, the residents of the apartments, stepped out onto the ground below, shadows and silhouettes in this peculiar fishbowl universe, gazing upwards and at each other and oohing and ahhing at the peculiar sky and the darkness.

The blackout is temporary. Soon enough, the lights flicker back on, and it is back to our usual business- lesson plans and whatnot. Watching bootleg movies, or football, reading, eating Cerelac baby food, popping black market Valium pills, cleaning, or just chillin on our pink beds and thinking of home...