We should turn off the lights more often.

It started like any other post-apocalyptic event, with no warning, no sign of what was about to happen. I was happily code-reviewing and debugging some fixes when the computer went off. Silence, not a whirl or beep to be heard. Stumped by the situation I sat there for a moment trying to remember what I had opened and what I had lost when a message came up on the phone. A friend from a faraway point in Spain informed me that he had no light either. Strange. Then another friend, a member of the same group, from an even farther away point in Spain informed us that he had no light either, and then the rest of the team from different parts of the country confirmed the worst. This was big. Huge!

We discussed this for a while until the network started failing. We couldn’t contact anybody, the internet, that network that was created to support nuclear war back in the Cold War was down in a whole country, maybe even more of the world, who knows? We had no means of getting news because everything runs on electricity now! We don’t even have a radio in the house, it is all digital.

At this point, I got up and ran to the window expecting to see bonfires and people chasing themselves around for food. What I saw was a beautiful day. A beautiful clear blue sky with some fluffy white clouds lazily floating around. Some people out for a walk and bicycle riding. The birds singing. I could even hear the waves in the ocean, probably because the constant whirl of my computer fans and everlasting construction noise was missing.

Definitely, I am watching too much television. I decided to grab a book and sat down for a read while the electricity returned. In the calm that only reading can bring to your brain and probably due to a constant lack of sleep, I inevitably fell into a pleasant nap. When I woke up, much to my surprise there was still no light. I looked out the window again to see that things had escalated. Now there were more people out in the street, talking, enjoying the day, and debating about the outage among other things. Interesting.

It was time for lunch, so I went to prepare a salad and some canned food. We had a nice lunch in the sun, discussing as we usually didn’t do, due to the fact that we couldn’t get captured by the cell phone which was still on the table. Then my son arrived, all hyped up about not being connected and what was he supposed to do now. I dryly answered: “take off your shoes, grab the leash, and take your dog for a walk on the beach. That still works, even without electricity.” To my surprise, that is exactly what he did after lunch.

I spent the afternoon doing household errands and DIY tasks. Then I went for a 4km walk to my mom’s house. I saw more people out on the street than usual, and, THEY WERE TALKING TO EACHOTHER. Incredible, people had no reason to stay stuck on the computer or have their heads on the phone while rudely ignoring the person next to them. They were enjoying being together. Even I stayed at my mother’s house more than usual.

On my arrival, I had a nice chat with the family. The houses around mine were doing the same, you could hear a nice rumor of chit-chat as the people interacted with the people around them. It reminded me of when I was much younger, people used to sit in the street and gossip for entertainment. Yes, I am that old.

I went to bed early and got a good night’s sleep for a change. Nice and needed.

When I woke up it was back to life as normal. No catastrophe, no cataclysmic post-apocalyptic event, nature didn’t even care at all that the light had gone out for 12 hours, and WhatsApp and Telegram were buzzing as usual.

I am very aware that there are many many edge cases here. People trapped in elevators, hospital emergencies, people who count on that electricity to breathe in their homes, a lot of income that was not generated, and others which I am not considering, but, maybe, just maybe, we should get into the habit of turning off the lights from time to time.

Photo by Dyu - Ha on Unsplash