Devonne Brown

The house went dead quiet and the den lights went out. The whirr of the refrigerator stopped. Norris knew something was wrong, same as I did. He asked for cream before the fridge got warm, he understood. I gave him treats instead. Usually these things flickered and came back on within seconds, then everything blinked, begging to be reset to the proper time and place.

Instead, that emergency broadcast siren thing went off on my phone, like the one on the radio that says “This has been a test by the emergency broadcast system, In the event of a real emergency, yada yada yada,” It looked like this was a real emergency. That screech was either my ex calling, I’d designated that ring tone for him, or it was legit. He wasn’t on the line. 

Norris and Madam ran for the bedroom when the siren screech went off. They hated loud noises. They got on the bed and snuggled up to the pillows to block the sound, I guess. They figured I was useless. I just stood in the den, wondering if the reading for that evening had been canceled.

It wasn’t dark, I had hot water for a shower, my hair was ok if I didn’t get it wet, I could still go. I was going. I had my stuff prepared. The writing group had been planning this event for months, and what was a little power outage anyway. The electric was bound to be on in town, it had to be local. 

The siren thing went off again, and again, it wasn’t my ex. I was beginning to wish it was. The text said A meteor had hit our county power grid. It might be days before electricity was restored.

Well, this wouldn’t do. I wondered if we would go the way of the dinosaurs? Would we be extinct before the grid was fixed? Was the grid just a crater now? 

I took a shower, got dressed, and overfilled the cats’ bowl, put out an extra bowl and overfilled that one too. I had time to make it to the reading. There would be power, wine, cheese, friends, and folks who wanted to hear us read our pieces. What was a little old meteor on one county grid? Surely no other county was affected. 

I packed a bag. We wouldn’t have school tomorrow, I was sure of it, but I needed to go to the reading. Three other group members were from the same county as me, when I tried to call them, I got no answer, the cell towers were down. Dammit. They didn’t live too close to the power plant did they? Would they have been vaporized?