The power outage made me feel old.
It happened swiftly, my boss and I just tripping from a seventeen floor elevator ride, being cajoled and ushered into a room of chocolate caked celebrations for Craig or Greg or somsuch's imminent wedding.
The power went out just as I was trying to push my plate behind Michael's, so that no one would notice that I had opted out of the sugar-headache.
The lights went out.
The uproar was immediate, and it began with Gila, and was comprised entirely of three words, four syllables.
"GILA, FIX IT!!!"
The sugaring went on in the dark while I raced to my desk.
Three empty handed phone calls later I was online with Dave, who'd already snuck batteries into the kitchen blaster, and was busy reading off names of cities as they dark calls came in.
The CPSO went white as I read off the names. Other faces went white one by one, somehow lighting up the swiftly warming space with sheer force of pallor.
Michael and I chased them out of the building, fifteen, twenty minutes later.
Mr. Big Chief wandered into his office looking confused, and Michael set about packing his stuff and wondering how he'd find home. I passed Mr. HR on the way up the stairs to the 19th and ran smack into the panicking execs.
We talked. Well, some of us talked. Some of us panicked and waved shaky hands in the air and eventually us talkers wes calmed the screamers and thereby the screamers exeunt. Most of them.
Three hours later we'd visually counted the diesel left in the generator, barked orders back and forth with a surprisingly large contingent of US forces in the building, played granny to the nervous hospitals, appeased the air ambulances, talked and patted and talked our way out of each impossibility.
Apparently carrying a fucking printer into the diesel-supported room to print out the contingency plan is a magical solution to utter tragedy.
(sarcasm was a prime weapon on Thursday)
I left work hours after the city had gone quiet, wired to the gills on nervous energy. I stopped on the way home, talking appartmented-friends into putting some water aside in containers just in case it really was going to go 24 hours like the americans said.
I was home by 8pm, and while Dave smiled at every neighbour as they smiled back and a thousand batteried radios squeaked their news onto the sidewalks I sat there and vibrated, wanting something to do. Wanting an emergency. Wanting to wander up to the hospital to volunteer, wanting to find a group of stragglers walking the twenty kilometers home and offer them water.
We sat until it was too dark, and then we sat with candles, and then the candles were out and I lay in bed until the wee hours, vibrating nervously from sleep's clutches. The nightmares were thick and ugly.
On friday we sat, and I drank in the city the way I always wanted it to be, while Dave took his turn vibrating nervously for lack of internet, worried about his work. I knew mine was mute and the angry buzz of demanding voices couldn't touch me.
On Saturday we were the last neighbourhood to have power back, a clean fridge, hot water and enough light to wash by. So we ran from the city to a friend's mom's farm to skinny dip in the pond and wander the forest until we found The Glade.
Not a glade, The Glade. The one that you read about in books. With the slanting light and too-green scattered trees.
We held hands for brief seconds and nodded our heads with the same breath and in April we will be married there.
In September, with enough plans underway for the momentum to be rolling like big rolly things, we will tell my mother. My father might be present as well. We will tell her that she is invited and welcome, as a guest.
And then I imagine will be periods of shocked and angry silence followed by manipulative phone calls followed by resigned silence.
On Sunday the barbecue reigned and the wading pool filled with topless or naked women, beer flowed and laughter burst faces right open.
Amidst the phone calls from the executives, of course.
Gila, we wanted you to know that we discussed you at the meeting today, and you are deemed an essential part of the essential services.
Gila you don't need to go in to work on Monday, the government is closed except for essential services.
Gila, you should go in to work on Monday, we need you for a few of those essential services.
And this morning: "Who the hell let HER into the building?!?!"
I was out by 11am and there was lunch and gossip and gentle hands and euphoria, and the most beautiful solid wood box is sitting atop my deep red chest, the beaded necklace and earrings that Dave snuck out of my attention and purchased from said friend's mom hanging beside Kerry's moonstone medallion just above it. The rest of the metal gear will fit into the box and suddenly I feel adorned. Not made up, not girly, but just a touch prouder somehow that I had something beautiful and green that sat above the bikini top I am suddenly so much less shy of.
A few corroborations from the skinny dipping episode that underneath the ill fitting jeans I'm leaning towards beautiful, and this morning's executive bullshit was just an hour's worth of blood fizzle.
And tomorrow, we're working from home, two teleconferences later and I've suddenly identified the biggest liars and manipulators, and those who care the most.
I work for both, and take orders from both, but when it comes to listening...
...and in the meantime, the universe is spinning again and the streets teem with cars and the hum of filth and electricity and spoiled children.
And in the meantime, my heart is shaped like a circular pond filled with naked people, playing.