Outage

Sometime in the evening, as I slept, the power went out…normally this sort of event wouldn’t actually wake a person, but the fan that I usually have humming in the window seems to make more noise when it’s silent than it does when it’s running. I had been dreaming of something, though I can no longer recall what about at this point, beyond the fact that whatever happened in the dream happened on a sidewalk somewhere, in broad afternoon daylight. It was this contrast that set me in motion…waking from something bright and noisy, to the breezy blue-dim silence of three in the morning. Without the fan, I could hear and feel the wind outside; a restless rise and fall. I felt strangely awake, and full of energy…so I sat up, dressed quickly and carelessly in the dark, laced my shoes with a sleep-drunken inaccuracy, and set out wearily and still somewhat dreaming on foot.

The outside air was a perpetually flowing wall of delicious summer wind, and my body responded with a sort of incredible euphoria– the way a warm bath feels to the skin after a long hard winter’s day. I meandered to the end of the block, peering at the few sporadically lit windows amongst the sea of dark, sleep ridden houses. I followed the side street to the bridge intersection, and slipped down the bluff’s goat trail…careful of my footing, and making a point to hold my hand in front of my face to catch spider webs. I landed soon after at the bottom, on the rivers edge…the gigantic bridge looming over me; it’s old-world lanterns too high and far away to catch any of the mist rising from the river. I dodged a falling stream of water, dripping down from a jagged cement lead-off, as I walked along the narrow cement walkway under the bridge, submerged momentarily in complete and utter darkness…the water echoing loudly against the vast wall of black cement. I broke out, then, into a whistle, just to enjoy the acoustics…the notes to a piece of terrible classic rock, of all things, that had become lodged in my head;

"…I tripped on a cloud and fell eight miles high, tore my mind, on a jagged sky…"

The fishermen at the lower river bridge made no effort to acknowledge me, or distinguish themselves against the sound of the roaring falls. Dark hooded shapes; quiet nocturnal river predators. Farther down along the lake coast, past where the river emptied itself into it, the park was a maze of sprinklers, which I danced through without issue beyond acquiring wet squeaky shoes and a moment of cool dampness. A sign marking the gate to the break wall; NOTICE – BREAK WATER UNDER CONSTRUCTION – TRAVERSE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Don’t mind if I do, thanks for the go-ahead. And it was there that things really got enchanting..

The evening conditions, as I mentioned earlier, were flawless…but the intensity of this perfection seemed to grow exponentially as I made my way out into the endless cosmic darkness of the rolling lake. The wind was intensified here, but no less warm, and although I couldn’t make out the size of the swells on the lake-side of the large cement barrier, I could hear the deep "boom…..boom" of the waves thundering against the rocks at it’s base. The lights from the city twinkled across the harbor to my right, ahead the distant lighthouse blinked red, and to my left the open lake met only the blackness of the horizon, where the low thick churning clouds seemed to be drawn. Patches of stars could be seen above, through the mess of unsettled cloud cover– stars as clear as spring water, and the constant swirling motions of the clouds gave me queer vertigo, often causing me to nearly lose my balance as I trod onward. After the long journey down the old portion of the broken walkway, across a brief segment of large rough boulders, and finally down the strangely uniform and smoothly finished section of break wall, I came at last to stand shoulder to shoulder with the lighthouse, and peered around at my 360 degree view of the surrounding lands. Three cities, of comparable distance, surrounded me…their distant lights winking and glancing off the water at me. The smell of fish and seagulls, with nothing to hear but the pressing of the wind and the rolling waves.

I experienced this beautiful moment, for the first time, without any real desire to share it with anyone…or any real desire at all, for that matter. I feel sort of…detached, and isolated. Comfortably so…