Blackout

One day last week, I walked home alone at around 8 plus in the evening. As I was walking along the familiar road, with other people also making their way home, I sensed an impending “danger”.

Then I realized. The lights below my block have gone out. There was a blackout, but only along the corridors in the block. Surprisingly, the lights in each household and the lifts worked fine, although the lights in the lift flickered a bit.

I made a phone call home, hoping someone would be at home to “take” me home. I crossed my fingers, but alas, my calls were unanswered. No one was at home.

Since I was already at the foot of my block, I braced myself up and took the lift alone. (When I recounted this incident later, somebody asked me, “Why were you not afraid that the lift might suddenly go out of service while you were in it?” My answer was plain and straightforward, “Not because I was not scared, but because it did not occur to me then that this might happen.”)

When the lift with the flickering lights reached my floor, the lift door opened and I was greeted with plain darkness. I shuddered, “Should I make my way out?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “I had gone this far, I might as well just take a few more steps to reach ‘safety’.”

At that moment, I realized that the phrase “walk as fast as my legs could carry me” which I have often used when I was writing compositions in primary school, was not simply made up. It came from TRUE experiences.

In almost total darkness, I “walked as fast as my legs could carry me”, and almost sprinted down the stairs, groping the staircase hand railings tightly in the dark. Darkness and uncertainty gripped my heart. All sorts of weird thoughts were coming to my mind, “What if somebody comes up from behind and robs me? Or attacks me?” It was frightening just thinking of that.

When I reached my door, I searched frantically for my keys. When I finally found it, I could not fit it into the keyhole! My hands were trembling so hard that I could not find the keyhole. It was scary!

Inside, I was muttering to myself, “Calm down, calm down”, followed by, “Hurry, hurry!”

When I eventually opened the door, I slammed it hard shut. I quickly switched on the lights and turned on the television at top blast. Then I sat down panting, with my heart beat racing very quickly.

As I sat down on the sofa, with the whole place lit up and noise infiltrating every corner of the house, I chuckled at my silly actions just a minute ago; the way my vivid imaginations have scared the wits out of me.

It was a “funny” yet scary blackout, and it certainly showed the profoundness of this quote: “You never know what a coward you are, until you are in the face of fear.”

Now I know.