When The Lights Go Out
“Solitude is the luxury of the rich.” I think that’s by Camus or maybe from a fortune cookie. Either way, it’s a line I like to quote. Solitude has become a contentious subject of late as the en masse cabin fever has become claustrophobic. I’m definitely someone who once prescribed to the idea of introversion to the point of misanthropy as a personality trait, amazed at those who feel energised rather than drained by being around people all the time. Tik-Tok from 'Return To Oz' my preferred metaphor; Dorothy's loyal robot friend who needs to be periodically wound up like a mechanical toy after a day of action or else he'd freeze and become mute. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy or miss having company without constraints but I do ask myself: how often are we really alone?
At Christmas, I still share a room with my sister. I imagine it was more annoying for her to have me burst in and scatter my collection of plastic dinosaurs on our shared floor when she was staring down puberty, than vice-versa. Then came university and shitty student flats. Then came shitty retail jobs and slightly less shitty house shares. Finally, the office life and commute I wanted to join the whining about, only to realise it was as demoralising as people said.
I wonder whether the fantasising about running away from it all and working with your hands is dissatisfaction with a white-collar world or a desire to be alone. Moving into the woods to live off the land. Or, incomprehensibly, becoming a successful sculptor, pacing around a messy studio contorting clay all day until the grime under your fingernails becomes part of you. I have these stupid daydreams knowing I’ll never pursue them.
If you don’t thrive in an office it’s often misconstrued as being bad at your job. I recount this one anecdote a lot because it sums up what an infuriating piece of performance art the modern workplace can be. One boss, despite being the poster boy of negligence, was a stickler for punctuality, able to constantly survey us in the aggressively open-plan office. After yet another pointless, musical chairs seating plan change I was placed behind him. I noticed that every morning he’d stride in and scrutinise our killing field of Macbooks to see who’d reached their desk on time. But then, without fail, I‘d watch him flick between refreshing his various social media and searching for his own name on Google. For hours. Even with his giant head in the way, I could see him scrolling for industry updates on projects he’d attached himself to like a limpet. The only thing that’d break up this routine would be work calls, which he’d loudly take while pacing up and down the rows of desks.
Eventually, I began to block him from my eye-line with a wall of houseplants. I read somewhere that having vegetation around sparked a primitive sense of safety and had been waiting for it to kick in. Practically, it’s also very hard to catch someone’s eye “for a chat” when they’re obscured by a peace lily. By the time I was fired I had twelve houseplants on my desk, all thirstily pawing for the scraps of sun that’d poke through the miles of strip lighting on the ceiling.
At the end of each working day, I’d decide which might be the less packed, the bus or the train, then strap on my headphones and breathe deeply. A suited knee spread-eagling, cramming me against a mildewed window. A backpack stuck in the doors making the swarm of people squirm further into the carriage while wanting to scream “JUST TAKE OFF THE FUCKING BACKPACK”.
I’d get home, turn the thermostat from inferno to broke and notice shuffling in my flatmate’s room as he dimmed his lights hearing my arrival. Then I’d go to sit on the edge of my bed and sigh. It reached the third month of him either paying the rent late or not at all. I’d resorted to putting the difference on a credit card fearing we’d get evicted. At first, I’d mustered up sympathy but it soon became me nitpicking over the heating bill, insulting him every time he found the cash for a night out but not the rent. It culminated in a bitter row over the phone where I’d lost my shit so completely that everyone in the edit suite I was in kind of mercury slithered out of the room in embarrassment.
It carried on like this for some time. Sitting at my desk surrounded by people but in silence. The hum of the carefully selected office playlist punctuated by snickers at private jokes over instant messenger. Then coming home and doing the dance of avoiding my flatmate in the shared kitchen or the bathroom. I resorted to hunkering down in my bedroom living off Tesco croissants to cut down the possibility of running into one another. But I’d still hold my breath and turn the volume down on Netflix if I heard him walking down the corridor, on the off chance he’d call a truce and want to talk.
I was simultaneously never alone but the loneliest I'd ever felt.
When I began teaching I was surprised how edifying the peace of having a classroom to yourself was before students would arrive. Now, freelancing again, I’m reminded you are physically alone, yes, but at the mercy of group video calls and multiple bosses' own politics to pay your rent. For a long time, I counted on eventually having a home of my own to retreat to. But have since learned to reluctantly change my expectations and just be grateful for a roof over my head.
Last week, however, after turning into the Goldilocks of home rental, I moved into a beautiful apartment. Sure, I had to move country away from friends and family but let’s not get bogged down with details. It’s a little further out than I wanted but in a swish building with self-check-in, a balcony, my own sofa and a separate bedroom — not a boxspring thrust between a toilet and microwave. I was excitedly taking photos of my new sanctuary when a message pinged from the landlord. “Buenas dias! I can see you made it into the apartment!” Baffled, I let it hang on Read. “I have an app for the front door lock!” Naturally, even in privacy, I have company.
After the first rose-tinted day a storm came. So I pottered around the apartment as the rain beat down because I could do that now. No quirky solo living habits. Just slouching on my bed in such a way to ensure a permanent change in spine curvature and using the toilet with the door open. The rain became unforgiving and for my first weekend I woke up to my bed surrounded by water, the outside now coming through a light fitting. It took me longer than it should have to weigh up surefire electrocution versus a day in my refuge spent resenting the maintenance man, but it got fixed.
And then a hurricane warning came.
I’ve experienced tropical storms and typhoons before, never a hurricane. I remember being holed up in a tiny bungalow with my mum, sister, uncles, aunties and cousins. Our eyes had widened as the daylight disappeared to make way for the squall. We’d laughed at my cousin deciding high winds were a good time to fry up corned beef over an open-flame cooker.
This time I’d be by myself. Most of the building was evacuating and this detail made my neighbours cock their heads in concern. I was not concerned, I’d even say I was relieved. I had snacks, water, candles. I’d charged my phone and taken my work documents offline hoping to be productive.
I went to bed during that eerie calm that comes before from all the pressure being sucked out of the air. Then the hurricane came in the dead of night and was, thankfully, much weaker than anticipated. When it’s happening it’s not the rain or even flying debris that’s frightening, but the sound of the wind trying to invite itself into your home through cracks in the doors and windows that’s blood-curdling. You don’t need a great imagination to hear not wind but a cluster of ghouls shrieking. Then a green, then a blue and another blue flash. Not lightning but power lines being severed across the neighbourhood. It was expected but then I heard an unexpected clunk from outside of my room. The fucking door lock.
Have you ever pounded your own turd down the toilet, torch in one hand, plunger in the other, praying there was enough water for a big flush? I have. Open door dumps no longer felt liberating. I hoped the power would be resolved after the recommended day of staying in and avoiding concussion by falling trees. Exhibiting an impressive lack of self-control, I idly ran through my phone battery solely from checking if the signal had returned. Then ran through a week's worth of emergency snacks.
Before I knew it I was laid in the dark again. I went to sit on my balcony to break up the monotony and listened to the chatter of people in a nearby apartment block. They were talking and laughing in the darkness, and I felt a pang of jealousy. A rat the size of a chihuahua wandered along the wall parallel and didn’t even stop to observe me. This was like the dramatic single-location episode they always do in big TV series, except it was shit.
You like to think that isolated from people, detached from technology and the white noise of the internet, you’d turn to writing poetry, drawing, learning to juggle. You’d appreciate the simpler things in life through candlelight and bucket showers. Nobody tells you the amount of hours where you’re left with your own brain. The tyranny of thinking my own thoughts and not then offloading them to Whatsapp? Or into a tangential Google search blackhole?!
The next day came and I killed a few hours napping, then sat on the balcony again, staring at the first page of a book for about an hour waiting for the words to become more pressing than my rage at the power still being out. I heard a faint cheer in the distance and, in another fit of envy and loss of sanity, decided to gingerly mount the balustrade and scale the side of the building to confirm my suspicions. From my new vantage point I could see the spread of the town twinkling with street lights, every single neighbourhood apart from the cluster of blocks I’d smugly just moved to, going about their business. Cleaning the storm’s ephemera off the streets rather than expressing concern that it had been at least sixty hours since I’d checked my emails.
Another day came. I had accepted my fate and resorted to actually reading my book, spooning the bag of apples that was left and cursing the speed at which I’d woofed down several packets of Doritos. All this longing and fighting for some solitude only to find myself both alone and lonely. My head was hanging off the side of the bed as I read, attempting to ease my previous commitment to slouching when there was the gentle reverb of the power returning. And then, finally, an electric chirrup and the lock turned open. I got up with a start and marvelled at the invention of doors opening and closing with freedom. Then wandered out to the balcony.
It felt like out of nowhere the owner of the papeleria opposite appeared to open up shop for the first time in days. Stood on my balcony, unkempt and stunned, no communication in what felt like a month I stared at him.
“¿Eres buena?” he called out.
“Sí,” I spluttered.
“Bien.”
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