Sizzle and Crash

Dearest Rachel –

Well, that came out of absolutely nowhere.

At about half-past midnight, there was this slight sizzling sound, followed by a thunderous cracking noise and a bright flash of light in our backyard.  I don’t know whether we got hit by a singular bolt of lightning (out of a sky with no rain) or some nearby transformer gave up the ghost in spectacular fashion, but that’s what happened.

I couldn’t tell you how I happen to be awake in the moments before the lightning strike (if that’s even what it was).  I had essentially sent Daniel off so I could go to bed at a quarter to eleven, figuring that we both needed to get to sleep. And, to be sure, it took me a little bit of time, but I was pretty sure that I did actually fall asleep before the moment came.  Maybe that sizzling sound itself was enough to wake me up, but I have a hard time believing that. On the other hand, the thought that I had some kind of momentary clairvoyance prior to it would be an even more ridiculous explanation.  Let’s just settle with the fact that I have no idea why, and leave it at that.

Needless to say, it wasn’t too long before I heard voices outside the bedroom door. Not addressed to me, or trying to wake me up, but the boys were apparently calling out to each other. Which makes sense; for all that Logan claims to want to go to bed at a reasonable hour, he does apparently spend some time up in his room with the computers on once he gets there, doing what have you. And even if he’d shut all that down by this point in time, he would’ve had fans going in his room just to keep cool (never mind that the air conditioning is going; he’s too well-insulated personally to not need a little extra cooling. I know how that is).  Meanwhile, in keeping with the fact that he’s your boy, Daniel probably never went to sleep between the time I bid him good night and when things went down, so he was wide awake at that point.

However, for all that, I think I could only make out Logan‘s voice. Apparently, he went outside to check the damage, at which point he realized that Daniel was neither inside the house nor wandering around it as he was.  He expressed a certain amount of concern to me when I finally decided not to continue bothering playing possum and enjoying the two of them as ‘they’ (actually only Logan, but I didn’t realize it in the moment) waved lights around outside in the yard. 

For my part, I was momentarily concerned too, but also remembered how Daniel used to wander around ‘patrolling’ the neighborhood in the wee hours throughout that entire first year after your accident; I figured he might be doing a little bit of the same at the moment, spurred on by the sudden shock of there not being any electricity in the house.  And it turned out that I was right; he returned shortly before one to verify that it was pretty much “lights out” as far down as the office complex and the strip mall in which the gym is located.  Moreover, the neighbors behind us on the back street were affected just as much as we were.

At this point, I suggested that we take the hint from the universe to just go back to bed, as there was nothing more we could do ourselves – including entertaining ourselves to stave off boredom. The irony was, our next-door neighbors had external lighting running on solar power, so there was some light coming in under the cracks of the blinds. Even amidst a blackout, I had to wear a sleep mask in order to shut the light out.

By a little after three-thirty, I was woken again; not by everything suddenly turning on – as if that would make any difference in a room in which I’d switched everything off in order to go to bed for the night – but because I simply couldn’t ignore the sounds of chainsaws to what I sounded to me as though it was coming from the north and slightly east (never mind the details of their map). They were too irregular to just serve as white noise; meanwhile, even at that hour, it was too warm (especially without the ceiling fan going) to put on my noise-cancelling headphones. I would just have to bear with it until such time as I could fall asleep again… and somehow, I managed to do just that.

The next thing I knew, it was morning. Well, it had always been morning, from even before the sizzle and crash hit in the first place, but you know what I mean. It felt like it should only be a little after five, but when I tore off my eye mask, it was bright and sunny out – and the power was on, with the nightstand clock blinking angrily at me to set it. I reached for my phone to confirm the time so I could, and saw…

…it was after seven-fifteen.

Good thing I haven’t any work commitments, honey; I’ve never be able to make it by now. At least, based on the blinking numbers, the power had been restored just a little less than two hours previously; considerably later than the power company had estimated (but what did they know, when they hadn’t even had a team out to check on things?), but in plenty of time for Logan to be able to start his own job fifteen minutes previously (perhaps to his chagrin).

I’d had another letter started for yesterday’s activities – and a little memory that I wasn’t aware of – and I might still get that put together and send it before the day is out, but this was a bit of excitement of sorts to tell you about (especially while I couldn’t quite fall asleep), so I figured I’d tell you about it, in any event. For the moment, keep an eye on me, and wish me well; I’m going to need it.