Powerless

From 4:30 yesterday afternoon until 3:00 Am, Three Acres Plantation came to a standstill. By the time I returned and was apprised of the situation, around 7:00 PM, it was as hot as a barn in my living room, and suddenly I was teleported back to living just down the street from here, in my grand dad's old farm house, once again, just before dad and I installed that little window unit in his/my old bedroom, upstairs.

That sort of primeval Summer heat, and that rural quiet that I once knew here, as a child, staying with him and grandma in that same house, years ago. They never had any air conditioning, nor any indoor heat, except the wood stove.

In the evening, they seemed to fear the coming of something called Dark. This was night time, and out here, in the sticks, it gets very dark out here, very quickly. Everything had to be done 'fo Dark!', or it did not get done...

As Dark came upon me yesterday evening, I was sitting on my front porch, enjoying a little of the cool from the rains of the thunderstorm. Glenda, my cousin from across the street, has a dusk to dawn light on her phone pole, but tonight it was not working, at all. The inky blackness of that rural darkness fell over the yard, and only when you look up at the tops of the tree line do you see any ambient light from the horizon, giving you just a little bit of contrast... Just enough to see that there are trees, and that they are still there.

They had electrical lighting, but none of it was very strong, except for grand dad's reading light. That bulb could start a fire, all by itself, it was so bright, and blinding... The rest of the house had these dim wattages, which were little better than candles.

I had a candle lit last night, as well. One.

I keep one under the sink in an old mason jar, next to a cigarette lighter. I keep these things there for just this reason, and found them in the dark, by feeling my way along the kitchen sink... Two thanksgiving table candles from years ago. They are my emergency lighting plan here at Three Acres.

I light the taller candle, and set the jar down in the stainless steel sink of the kitchen, to sort of half way light up the kitchen, and the living room. Just so the house is not in that solid pitch black under-your-bed sort of darkness! You can see to get around, but that is all...

My iPod goes into the battery powered speakers from my lifeguard survival bag, and I have my milk and Dr. Peppers down in a great cooler full of ice that I drove six miles into town to get, in case the power was out all night. Ice cold milk for my cereal in the morning is as necessary as air!

I open an unscheduled Dr. Pepper, and sit down to watch the flicker of the candle in the kitchen, from the couch in my living room...

Later, another breath of air on the porch, and the still deafening quiet of the after-rain. Black as pitch, everywhere you look, outside. My life is not this quiet. This is Ghost Quiet, where the souls of the past can be heard and felt and even seen, sometimes moving about, and I never have it this quiet out here, for that reason.

I have a photograph of one of those things, the White Lady Ghost of Avenel House, Miss Letitia Burwell... and I know that they are very real. She can be seen on the second disc of the official Avenel House Documentary Portrait of a Plantation 2009. Touch that link to see the Amazon site for it.


If I keep my driving rain CD on continuous loop all night long, I can sleep undisturbed... Tonight, however, there is only the deep, tomblike quiet of the country... the buzzing of some locusts outside, maybe, but in here, nothing at all... No power for the CD tonight. The occasional car going by, every few hours, can wake me if I don't have the CD going... I have not had my shower, and I am hot and sticky and this really blows!

3:00 AM. The kitchen light comes on, by itself. Just like I set it to do, before I went to bed... The house comes back to life!

Life has been restored to Three Acres Plantation, at last.