The Power Cut

Marcos had lived on the fourth floor of a big old apartment building in Chicago for two years, and he didn't know a single neighbor's name. He said hello in the elevator, of course. Everybody did. But nobody stopped to talk. People looked at their phones, the doors opened, and they disappeared into their apartments.

Then, on the hottest evening of July, everything went dark. The air conditioner stopped, the fridge went silent and the street lights outside went off. Marcos looked out of the window. The whole street was black. He took his phone, turned on the flashlight and went out to the stairs, because the elevator obviously wasn't working.

On the stairs, he almost walked into a woman with a candle. "Oh! Sorry," she said. "It's a big one, isn't it?" "It looks like the whole neighborhood," Marcos answered. "You live on the fifth floor, don't you? You're the one with the piano." She laughed. "Guilty. I hope I'm not too loud." Her name was Grace, and she taught music at a high school.

Soon there were more lights on the stairs. An old man called Mr. Kowalski came down slowly with a battery radio. "You're the young man from Spain, aren't you?" he said to Marcos. "My wife always says you look sad in the elevator." Marcos didn't know what to say. A teenage boy with a camping lamp came up behind them. "Nobody knows how long it's going to last, do they?" he asked.

The radio said that a storm had damaged the power lines and that the lights wouldn't come back for several hours. It was too hot to stay inside, so somebody suggested going up to the roof. Ten minutes later, there were fifteen people sitting on the roof in the warm night air, looking at a city with no lights.

It was strange, and it was beautiful. Without the lights, they could see stars over Chicago. Mrs. Kowalski brought out a box of chocolates before they melted. The teenage boy, Jamal, shared his ice cream before it melted too. Grace started singing an old song, and Mr. Kowalski, to everyone's surprise, knew all the words.

They talked about everything: where they came from, how long they had lived in the building, which neighbor's dog barked every morning. "You've never been to a Cubs game, have you?" Jamal asked Marcos. "Never." "Then you're coming with us next Saturday," said Mr. Kowalski. "No excuses."

At around one in the morning, the lights suddenly came back. Air conditioners started humming all over the street. People cheered, but nobody moved. "We should do this again," Grace said. "Without the blackout, I mean." They all agreed.

Now, every first Friday of the month, there is a party on the roof. And in the elevator, people talk to each other until the doors open, and sometimes after that too.