The Blackout
Authors: Stephanie Erickson
The Blackout
By:
Stephanie Erickson
Copyright ©2012 by Stephanie Erickson
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof.
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Calm
1.
“The nature of the world is to be calm, and enhance and support life, and evil is an absence of the inclination of matter to be at peace.” – Gregory Maguire,
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
What a difference one hundred years can make. The 20
th
century saw the dawn of automobiles, the Internet, cell phones and the personal computer. All of which came to rely on one common denominator – electricity.
The world hummed and clicked away, consuming more electricity than those who lived a century ago would have ever dreamed could exist. But it was a fragile existence, one easily shattered by the sun’s fiery tendrils.
The light the world created blinded them. A storm was coming that would sweep across the globe like wildfire, leaving nothing but darkness in its wake.
2.
Molly was just finishing cleaning out her inbox when Cindy’s slender frame walked by the door. “Hey!” Molly called out.
Cindy stopped and poked her head in. “Hey yourself. What’s up?”
“Nothing. I’m just finishing up here, and was going to get some dinner. Wanna come?”
Cindy knew Molly was lonely and didn’t get much social contact when her husband was gone. Even though she had a lot to do, Molly needed her. “Sure! The kids don’t need to be picked up for a while, but I’m not quite ready to go yet. Can ya’ wait like fifteen or twenty minutes?”
Molly smiled. Cindy was never quite ready to go. She had three kids and a sociable husband, so grading essays and preparing for the next class weren’t easily accomplished at home.
“Sure, that sounds great. Just holler when you’re ready.”
Molly, on the other hand, had lots of quiet time at home. Gary had already been gone for two nights and wouldn’t be back for another five. If nothing else, being a pilot’s wife left her with plenty of time to herself. It was an adjustment she hadn’t fully mastered, and she was grateful she wouldn’t be eating alone tonight.
When Cindy left, Molly sifted through the night’s work, thinking she’d get a head start. She opened the file for her Modern Poetry class and took out the essay on top. “Mutability”, it was titled.
What can a person rely on? Friends and lovers come in and out of a person’s life as often as they change their underwear.
Oh Lord,
she thought, and flipped to the end of it.
Seven pages of this crap?
She leaned back in her chair, pulled off her rimless glasses and rubbed her eyes; her habit when she didn’t want to embark on the task at hand. She sighed and uncapped her purple pen (she never used red - she found it too harsh, too judgmental, and way too negative) attempting to ready herself for the potential garbage she was about to trudge through.
Four pages in, Cindy came to the rescue. She had pulled her long blonde hair back into a low ponytail and donned a gray blazer over her white blouse and khaki pants. She was always very put-together and stylish.
“Ready!” she announced. “Where do you want to go?”
“Thank God! This essay is a nightmare.” Molly paused, considering the options. “You know if I was alone I’d just go up to McDonald’s. So, what are you in the mood for?”
Cindy frowned and wrinkled her nose. “Not McDonald’s. I don’t know how you can stay so thin and eat there as much as you do.”
“I don’t eat there every day.”
Cindy laughed. “I know, but still! If I’m going to eat that many calories, I want it to be worth it!”
They walked to the stairwell together. Molly never took the elevator, so if one of her friends wanted to walk with her, they had to take the stairs. The building was only two stories high, and the elevator was installed in 1967. Molly didn’t trust it to get her where she needed to go reliably.
“Whatever. McDonald’s is delicious,” Molly countered. “So, since you vetoed my suggestion, where do you want to go?”
“I’m thinking pizza. How about the Pizza Garden?”
They stepped outside and Molly assessed the situation. “It’s a nice evening. Pizza Garden sounds great.”
The restaurant was only a few blocks from the campus, so walking was a no-brainer. Although they were likely to see some of their students, The Pizza Garden – with its homemade pizzas and calzones oozing with cheese and garlic – was well worth the risk.
The walk through historic downtown was beautiful, with small shops and businesses on either side of the street. It was mid-October, and the temperature in northern Florida was ideal for an evening stroll.
Molly pulled her navy blue cardigan a bit tighter and crossed her arms, trying to keep pace with Cindy. Cindy was at least a head taller than Molly – as most people were – so she had to work to keep up with Cindy’s stride.
“Good Lord. Some of my classes this term are so defiant,” Cindy said. “They think everything is a negotiation. If I tell them I want a fifteen hundred-word paper on
Twelfth Night
they try to haggle me down to seven-fifty. I’m like, really? Fifteen hundred words isn’t that many for a Lit major. So quit your whining and just do it! I can’t believe they pull this crap with some of the other teachers. I know Terry wouldn’t tolerate that. I mean, are they doing that to you?” Her pace quickened with her declining mood, and Molly struggled to keep up.
“Well no, but I don’t think we have that many of the same-” Cindy cut her off.
“So, what is it about me, Molly? Do I look like I don’t know how to teach the material? Do I look like I need a nineteen or twenty-year-old to swoop in and rescue me from the burden of teaching Shakespeare? What is it?”
She turned to Molly with unbridled frustration in her eyes as they walked, and Molly only met her gaze for a moment. Not because she was uncomfortable, but because she knew better than to not watch where she was going.
Molly chuckled a bit, but not at her. It was comical how passionate they were about their craft, and sometimes the students just didn’t get it. Particularly those who took Shakespeare or Modern Poetry for an “easy elective.” It was nearly impossible to get through to them, but it didn’t stop most of the faculty from trying. It sounded to Molly like Cindy had ended up with an entire class of “easy electives”.
“Cindy, you have to try not to take it so personally. Some kids want to get the best grade possible by doing the least amount of work. It’s how they’ll approach their whole lives. I’m sure you’re not the first person they’ve tried that crap on, and you certainly won’t be the last. You just have to stick to your guns and lay down the law. They’ll learn by mid-terms not to try that stuff with you anymore.”
Cindy sighed as they approached the hostess at The Pizza Garden. She was – of course – a student they both had. “Hey Dr. Nicholas. Dr. Bonham. Table for two?”
“Please, Shelly,” Molly said, thankful to have remembered her name. There were only a few thousand students at the college, but Molly often had a hundred of them per semester, and this was her third year on the faculty.
Cindy smiled half-heartedly at the girl as she scooted into the cement bench across the table. “Your waiter will be right with y’all,” Shelly said and walked away.
Cindy jumped right back into their conversation, despite the brief interruption. “It’s hard not to take it personally, ya know? I mean, why take the class if you don’t care at least a little bit about Shakespeare?”
Molly cleared her throat as a young man approached the table. He didn’t seem familiar to her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in Cindy’s Shakespeare class. He had dark, curly hair bordering on messy and wore a white apron over his t-shirt and jeans. He set a basket of garlic bread on the table and asked what they would like to drink. Both ordered Sprite, which he took down and hurried away.
Cindy smiled devilishly. “Do you know that kid?”
“No, do you? I thought he might be in your Shakespeare class.”
“No, he’s not. Probably some other lazy kid.”
“Well, now, that’s not quite fair. He’s working, isn’t he?”
They bantered back and forth about the waiter’s work ethic until he came back to take their order. They asked for a pepperoni pizza to share, and munched on the garlic bread while they waited.
“How are the kids? And Tom?” Molly asked between bites, debating about whether her breath would reach toxic levels before this meal was over.
“Good. Busy-busy, you know. Grace started soccer last weekend, so of course Melody wants to do it too- just because she has to do everything her big sister does, not because she has any genuine interest in soccer. Poor Malcolm is caught in the middle. He wants to do karate, so Tom and I are looking into it. I actually think Melody would be a pretty good dancer if she’d give it a chance, but Grace isn’t into it, so she doesn’t want to do it.”