Thunderstorm

The lights went out with a dull thud, as if they had all suddenly dropped to the floor at once. We looked at one another in the dark.

The man on TV had been at the height of his desperation when he vanished. For a while, we stared at the big black box, patiently waiting for another dose of electronic sustenance. But the man remained firmly hidden, and we wondered aloud at his fate.

We wandered from room to room, observing for the first time the
B-movie quality of our bedroom when lit by cracks of lightning, and laughing at our faces illuminated by flashlight. We drank warm red wine from thick tumblers and dug out our books to revisit favorite places by candlelight.

I was sorry when the lights came back up.