A Day Without Power, By Makaila Odoom

 A Day Without Power, By Makaila Odoom

There was once a time where I had a life, with sweet, sweet electric lights, WiFi, and AC. And then the unimaginable happened. You see, it all happened one Saturday morning, when I woke up. I reached over on my nightstand to turn on my light. Guess what happened? It didn’t turn on. At first I thought it was just a coincidence, just a burned out lightbulb, another ordinary day, and that’s when I checked my phone. Two, life changing words flashed across the screen. 

NO CONNECTION. I screamed as a horror settled in my bones. I peeked out in the hallway to confirm this terror. The power was out. The worst was yet to come, though. I soon found out that all my devices hadn’t been charged. I was officially a 20th century girl.

It was time to start my morning routine, so I had to put the morning's treacherous activities behind me. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, brushed my hair, and ate breakfast in complete silence. No music, no YouTube videos. NO, NOTHING. I went for my morning walk in utter silence. Even the birds didn’t sing. It was like they were feeling what I was feeling.

After I got home from the World’s Quietest Walk, my little brother brought out board games to play. That eased the pain for a while, but then I remembered I couldn’t update my status on WhatsApp. OH THE MISERY!!!! Instead, I had to take a picture on my instant camera, which I dug up from the attic, to post when the power finally came back on.

My brother and I played outside with our friends for the rest of the afternoon, forgetting about electronics for the most part. But there was still an invisible pain, lurking beneath the surface. Then the sun started going down and my parents had to whip out the battery powered lights. To make it fun, we all slept in the living room, and played board games until midnight. 

Overall, the start of the day wasn’t great, but I learned that you don’t have to have electricity to have fun. No electricity helps you engage more with your loved ones, instead of staring at a screen all day. I feel like I've grown in knowledge and understanding, but please, power plant people, NEVER let this happen again. This overly dramatic story was really fun to write while the power was out, though.