Friday, December 18, 2009

Blackout

Scene opens on a half-crazed redhead who is intensely studying for her science exam. She's looking a little ragged; after all, she still has to clean the vanity, hallway, and her bedroom, pack her car, and take two more finals, all before tomorrow afternoon. And she hasn't gotten much sleep. It's no wonder that when the next event happened, she just wanted to take a nap right there.

(
Girl, studying, and thinking to herself): Man, I have so much to do. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. Cleaning everyone's stuff off the vanity is going to be a pain. Translation occurs on the ribosome...or on the nucleus. Better check that again. As soon as I get home I'm going to load up my car. Einstein's special theory of relativity says...
(BAM! Lights flicker, then die in the Benson building)
Girl, thinking to herself: I'm too tired. I just want to lay down here for a second.
(Some girlish screams heard throughout the building. Emergency lights come on. Girl notices that not only are all of the lights in the building out, but the entire campus is pitch black. Somebody in one of the classrooms mentions a large power outage.)
Girl gets up, decides to go into class where her study group is being held. Waits for teacher....in the dark. Waits a little longer. No teacher.

Guy from her class [hopefully a freshman, or else there is no excuse for this] decides it would be smart to use his lighter. Guy decides it would be even smarter to drink hand sanitizer. Guy decides his best idea yet is to blow hand sanitizer from his mouth over his lighter to create a large streak of fire in the classroom. Girl decides it's time to go home and get started on her growing to-do list. Girl walks home in pitch blackness and wonders how she's going to get anything done without power. Girl gets to her apartment complex and starts thinking:
Girl: I wonder why there's a flashing strobe light in the parking lot. I wonder why people are spinning doghnuts in the parking lot. I wonder why there's really loud, headache-inducing music being played the night before finals. I wonder if my apartment is warm...

Girl gets to her apartment to find...well...darkness. One roommate is there, pacing because she has to write a paper but doesn't have internet. Roommate is very mad. Roommate is trying to get ahold of her grandparents, who live in town, and maybe have internet. Grandparents stuck at a concert in town. Grandparents can't get into parking lot because of strobe-light dance party/car show. Roommate gets madder. Girl retreats to bedroom. Girl uses cell phone for light, then her cell phone dies. Girl goes next door to play Skip-Bo because they have a flashlight and nothing better to do. Power comes back on for sixty seconds, enough for everyone to scatter back to their white glove/finals. As soon as girl plugs her phone into the wall, power dies again. Girl says a prayer and decides she's going to start cleaning anyway. Girl uses iPod for light and begins to scrub. And think about ribosomes.

Girl lives without power for three hours. Girl realizes that without light, we can't do much of anything. Girl sees the Christmas message in this.

Do you?



3 comments:

Unknown said...

This girl is smart...so glad she's home safe.

Amy said...

Girl- so glad it's all over. I love the way you found a beautiful message in all of that craziness.

shawn rowley said...

that is a hum dinger...