With a startlingly loud popping sound, the power went out. No radio nor television, no internet nor telephone, and no air conditioning. I adjusted quickly enough, opening a book and settling into my chair, sipping from a glass of cool water. The faintest of breezes wafted through the back door and softly brushed my skin as it made its way through the room and out into the front yard. I had experienced this before: the quiet stillness of old houses in old days in small West Texas towns. I closed my eyes and let myself be carried away to other times and places. I was a boy in Seagraves. I was young man spending a summer day in the isolation that is Valentine. I was a 19th-century El Pasoan in the days of adobe houses on the lush banks of the mighty Rio Grande. Long ago faces appeared to me, and voices long silent spoke again. All was normal. All was as it should be. I relished every slowly creeping moment. Then the electricity came back on...
Zoomer Roberts
28 June 2016
