Blackout, or, The Last Match

I got quite used to minor, more or less regular (with a natural tendency to come at the least appropriate moment like the night before an important essay deadline) blackouts at our dormitories. The aftermath of the last one I most probably still feel in the form of my stomach ache (the blackout took place when I was at work and it took our fridge out of service, which lead to the fact that most of the food inside got rotten without my noticing it before it was too late).

But this academic year a complete and long-term blackout took place twice. First time it appeared during the exam period in September, when my roommate was out and I had to handle it alone. It caused me then a slight form of heart attack and lead to my being interrogated for seven hours by a boy from next door under the transparent pretense of trying to get to the safety-fuse in my room :) The second time when a "big bang" came was yesterday evening. It is unnecessary to add that an exam period is in full swing and my roommate is in Denmark. I got back from work quite late after a very tiring day, answered a phone -promised to arrange many things for my mother the next day (and not to forget anything and not to borther anyone except myself too much)-answered an email from a friend of mine looking for a job, answered another email from another friend looking for another kind of help, finally started to work on my essay and at the same time I was preparing myself to answer a message from my roommate who was asking for some advice concerning her webcam, when -KABOOOM- all went black.

I think I have mentioned here before that if nothing else, there is one good thing Mr. Le Soleil have taught me. To keep calm as much as possible under any circumstances. So I took a deep breath, petted my computer hoping that at least a torso of my essay was still inside and looked out of the window. Both block of flats belonging to our dormitories were drowned in complete darkness, as were the street lamps on the main street. I could also hear angry and frightened screams of the other students starting to creep out of their rooms and running to and fro in a confused manner through the corridors. "Rats" thought I, being tempted to take out my flute and start playing, just to see if they would listen or follow me, but for some reason I have decided not to. Maybe I just got used to the fact that there was no time for playing as my obligations are not finished yet. But what could I do? The borrowed laptop was discharged, an my cell phone was going to shut down every minute. Continuing in writing an essay was therefore out of question. My previous experience was telling me that the blackout would take several hours and my nerves were telling me that trying to go to sleep would have been in vain, either. I remembered my being proud of myself in September, when I had, according to the scout motto, "been prepared" and had a torch by hand. I also remembered my borrowing the torch to that neighbour boy who doesn't happen to live here anymore, but I did not remember his giving the torch back or my giving it back to the drawer. I realized I was really missing the music I had been listening to before the blackout, so I changed the flute idea for a guitar, only to sadden myself by the fact how much of my feeble player skills I have forgotten. I then desired touching the piano, but -oh, the curse of electricity-addicted mankind!-all I had was a keyboard, muted without the supply of electrons. So much for fighting blindness by music.
Then I realized I really needed to use the toilet and the shower and then I remembered my roommate having a romantic shower in the candle light once in the past.

CANDLES!

Perfect, if I found a candle, I would be at least able to read a book-such were my thoughts.
And it so happened that I have had four long candles lying on the table since... well, let's say since advent time and I thanked God for the idea of buying them back in December (not really sure whether He was the iniciator of the idea, but never mind:)) . Half-drunk by my victory over darkness I realized that having the candles is not everything.
Oh, Robinson Crusoe, would you please, please stop intervening in my life? I have no chance to check my late essay about you and refresh the knowledge of getting some fire to my desert island, and no, I am not going to try and catch the lightning from the sky, there's no storm, anyway.

Finally, I found it.
One last match.
I was not prepared.
I was ashamed.
But I still had some scout know how left.
Or I was simply lucky.

I lit all four candles with the single match. But after a few hours of hurting my eyes by reading in unstable light I came to another issue. I was afraid of blowing off the candles as I had no other source of light and I was afraid of falling asleep with the candles burning everything including me to ashes (the memory of the sere flowers and empty candle holders in front of our faculty - a tribute to a young national hero who burnt himself to death for greater good fourty years ago-was still alive). Well, I finally choose the first option (lesser evil better than greater good?) and went to a restless sleep. I was woken up four hours later by the lights (and fridge) going on again. I checked that the computer was still talking to me, wrote this "therapeutic report" and guess what? I think I am going to buy some matches, ink and paper before leaving for work. Maybe I should get myself a goat as well, to have some fresh milk and not a sour one next time.

What says thou, Selkirk ?