It was a Saturday evening on December 11th. For a few days there were wind warnings for that afternoon and later from Hydro One. “Don’t be surprised if there are power outages in the Ottawa Valley.” How did they know? The lights went out shortly after 7:00 pm.
I was watching a Netflix series called ‘Til Death.’ The language spoken was Arabic along with English subtitles. After a number of episodes I was thinking it was maybe a soap opera from the Middle East. The screen went blank first which was a relief in a way – then everything else electrical crashed.
One item didn’t. It was a special wine bottle, transparent glass with a rose on the bottom of it. Sheila had a set of small uncoloured lights with its battery pack and had stuffed the lights inside the bottle. This setup threw enough light to fill the room and more.
As I was sitting and thinking, I noticed a few blocks away, vehicles turning and heading to the Community Hall. Of course, tonight was the concert being performed as part of the ‘Festival of Small Halls’ beginning at 7:30. Now the Hall has emergency lighting barely illuminated enough to get to the bar, which was open, thank goodness.
I still had in the closet an old dial-up telephone which is handy to get an update from Hydro One but tonight so many were calling, I couldn’t get through.
I recalled my father telling me when he attended the Westmeath Public School, electricity hadn’t arrived in the village. School day starts and finishes were determined by the amount of daylight. Winter days finished earlier for example. After dark, supper, reading, homework were done with kerosene lamps lighting the way. I couldn’t live like that. The power’s been off for only two hours and I’m already going snaky.
When it is off a couple of hours or more I begin to imagine the Ransomware hackers from Russia may have hacked into the power grid. If they ever did and demanded a humongous amount of money for ransom from the government – which the feds don’t because of bailing us all out during to the pandemic.
What then?
When lights go out after dark I desperately hunt for a flashlight. But my mind is blank. As it is, flashlights tend to be among the items that move around so much I can never get my hand on it in a moment of urgency.
A kid’s imagination can start playing tricks when the lights go out. What’s under my bed? Is that a burglar I hear? With the help of a parent, kids can get more comfortable in the dark. Using a nightlight or shining a flashlight under the bed to see that there’s nothing there can help fight that fear.
In one 2018 U.K. survey, nearly 40 percent of respondents said they were afraid to walk around the house with the lights off. If I wake in the night, I make a cup of tea to help get back to sleep. I enjoy too taking a stroll all over the house in the dark for some reason I can’t explain.
In that same survey, 10 percent said that they wouldn’t even get out of bed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night
Many suffer from the fear of darkness or night phobia. The clinical terminology for this phobia is Nyctophobia, generally originating from a traumatic experience in the past. This heightened sense of nyctophobia, worsens when the lights go out during an electrical failure.
A neighbour once talked about a time when her husband went out of town for training and she was home alone. Just her luck, the electricity went out. She said, “I thought about rushing outside but it was pitch dark there too, so I quickly ran to the closet to get my lantern. I kept looking around to see if something was reaching to grab me. Filled with anxiety and panic I passed out.” The next thing she recalled was waking up the next morning.
Now she keeps two lanterns by her bed.
Oh yes, the concert went on without a hitch with only the emergency lighting.
