Zap

The power went out in our compound last Wednesday, and it had not been on for even five minutes since then.  Again, this was only in our compound, not throughout the town.  Looking up at the wire that connects our house to the grid, Donovan observed it sparking and arcing a few times, which was extra worrisome given that it was doing this above our 100% corrugated sheet metal fence.  It almost looked as if a squirrel had been chewing on the line (impossible, I know), leaving it frayed, but still alive, but not alive enough to give us even a lick of power over the last 5 days.

This was somehow extra annoying, as the whole of Fitche seemed to be abuzz with electrical vibrancy like never before, and we were being left out of the party.  There had been rumors of an “unofficial fee” that needed to be paid, but that never came to fruition, thankfully.  A man showed up today before noon to fix the line, which left me with an image that I feel the need to share.

Donovan once remarked that the electrical poles here are affixed to the ground with about the same level of security as candles in a birthday cake, a quote that I appropriated for my previous post “The Rains Return.”  This idea was further backed up by what we saw when the man was fixing the line.  Instead of using a ladder, the repairman had simply climbed up the pole.  He was fastened to it by a rope around his waist and was wearing spikes on his shoes akin to those that Jon Snow and the Wildlings used to climb the wall in Game of Thrones.  At the bottom of the pole was one man ramming his shoulder into the base of it like a linebacker with a tackling dummy.  One of our neighbors had just thrown a rope around the pole and was standing in the middle of the road pulling on the line to keep the pole from buckling under the weight of the fairly svelte and small repairman.  Sincerely, I wish that either of us had had a camera, because this image was pretty much priceless.

When our neighbor saw us, he gleefully exclaimed that they were ”Finally fixing the light.”

Donovan said, “That’s great!” Then, noticing that all of the buildings around us seemed to still be under power, he asked, “Did they shut off the power first?”

Still with the same delight in his voice, our neighbor replied, “I have no idea,” as he continued to tug on the line to keep the pole from falling over into our yard.

We walked away at that point, not wanting to see if anyone was going to wind up crispy-fried from this repair job.  It seems to have done the trick, though, and power has once again been restored.  Now, I wonder how long it’ll be until the grid crashes for the entire town and leaves us all in darkness for two days or so…

~Jessie