Written August 7, 2020

Day One

The darkness sat heavy upon them like the bulk of a gargantuan beast. It was a particularly humid evening, which only made the oppressiveness worse. Light from the candles situated in various places around their living room cast distorted shadows on the walls and their somber expressions.

It could have been a painting. Or at least the younger boy thought so as his eyes moved across the faces of his family—his mother, Carrol; his father, Garrett; older brother, James, and little sister Gigi. He would say something about it, except these people did not understand him this way. They would have thought it was another one of his silly delusions. But it could have been a painting. The little lighting there was would set the mood and draw the viewer into this family’s reality. Who are these people, and why do they look so sad? they would wonder. It would be intense, unsettling, riveting. He envisioned people crowding around it in a museum—perhaps the Louvre. The boy loved the Louvre. They would look into each subjects’ eyes and thinking that they could see flashes of their thoughts by the flickering candlelight. 

If this was a painting, and if this family was in it, the first thing that people would see was Carrol. She was biting her nails. Her eyebrows were stubbornly forced together. Her bushy brown hair had been freed from the ferociously tight bun it was usually subjected to, and it was lit like a halo by the orange luminescence behind her head, each frizzy strand looking like it was dipped in molten bronze. 

The next person in the painting that might be noticed could be the oldest child, James, slouched deep into his armchair like a curmudgeonly king. He was seventeen. His chest rose and fell, and every so often he would dryly clear his throat or turn on his phone, mixing orange light with blue. At times he would scowl at his brother or sister or parents and roll his eyes and sigh. The younger boy thought that this would be the right moment to capture in the painting, his big brother at the end of a sigh, when his bottom lip was slightly removed from his upper one. The nearly imperceptible sheen of saliva on his lips would have to be added by the artist after the whole face was done with the tip of their smallest brush.

Then it would be the little girl, who was two years old. She resembled a cherub. All of her features were ideal. That smile though, that smile would be a reprieve for everyone, just as it was a reprieve for the boy. She was so oblivious to all of it. Perhaps she even liked the darkness. But then the smile would disappear because she would realize that she was tired, and in her mind darkness was for sleeping, and she would cry. Another sadness. 

The father’s face would be difficult for the artist to portray. Most of all the bottom half of his face. It was so very generic. Garrett’s jaw was firm, but not too firm. His lips were thin, but not that thin. Was that a smile? A glance with a touch of slyness? No one knew, even Garrett himself.

The boy, who was eleven, would be the last people would see. That was, after all, how it usually went. The little sister was so cute, the big brother was so sour, and no one could place the middle one. For some reason even the boy could not conjure up what his portrait would be like. He decided his figure would be shrouded in shadows. He would be a silhouette, but people would be able to tell that he was watching his siblings and parents. They would be able to tell that he was always observing. 

Once he had finished his reverie, he looked closely at each member of his family once more.“Why do we look so sad?” the boy asked himself. He could not remember the last time that they laughed. He wanted to break the silence. It was getting to be too much. Families like this should not be left in quiet resignation.

“I kind of like the dark,” the boy said.

“You would,” James spat.

The boy shrugged.

Carrol stopped biting her finger nails for a moment. “I don’t. I don’t like the dark at all.”

“Would everyone shut up?” Garrett said. Then he seemed ashamed. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

The renewed silence lasted for a beat before the mother piped up again. “I think I’m going to call the power company.”

“Again?” James said with a groan.

“It’s worth a try, sweetie,” Garrett said to Carrol. The endearment slipped clumsily out of his mouth. 

Carrol stretched her parched lips to attempt a smile, then knit her brows again as she dialed the power company’s phone number. She put it on speaker. An automated voice punctuated by heavy static repeated the message it had told them before. “Thank you for calling Central Hudson Gas & Electric. We are unable to serve customers at this time. There has been a major power outage in your area. Please remain calm as we determine the cause of the problem. Thank you for your patience.”

Garrett huffed. “Could you go to the kitchen and get us all a glass of water, Carrol?”

“I don’t want water,” James said.

“Well you’re getting some,” said Garrett.

The mother brought the father and children the glasses of water, then stayed standing for a moment, wringing her fingers and biting her lip. 

“What’s up with you, Mom?” the younger boy asked.

“Nothing, honey. You don’t worry about a thing.” She often said this to him, with her nervous smile twitching to life, then slowly fading. It always made him worry about everything.

The father leaned forward and rubbed his face with both of his hands. He breathed through the spaces between his fingers. Gigi started to cry and fuss in her chair. Garrett got up with a grumble. “Alright, alright,” he said as he picked her up and bounced her around in his arms a bit. “What do you want? Are you hungry?” Her face was getting red and snot dribbled out of her nose. “No one ever said being a toddler was easy,” the father mumbled.

Carrol emerged from the kitchen with two glasses, then went back to get the others. 

Garrett handed Gigi to his wife. Her crying was getting more aggressive. Carrol said something that no one heard and swung the girl around in her arms until she settled down.

“Did you hear what I said?” Carrol asked.

“We never hear what you say,” said James.

“That’s not true, Mom. You said something about the Emersons?” the boy responded.

The mother looked at her younger son gratefully. “Yes. I think we should talk to them.”

“The freaks?” said James.

“Stop it,” the father retorted. “Why do you insist on being difficult?” He turned to his wife. “Why should we talk to the Emersons?”

“I think they said something about their nephew working for Central Hudson, or something like that. Maybe I’m wrong.”

There was a knock on their front door.

“Who could that be?” asked Carrol. She got up to answer it as the rest of the family stared at each other’s faces in silence and listened to her conversation with the mystery people.

“Hello Carrol,” a woman’s voice sung.

“Speak of the devils,” said James.

Garrett suddenly sat up in his chair. “Dolly?”

James sneered. “So you call Mrs. Emerson Dolly now?”

“Would you mind your own business?” Garret said, shooting his son an irritated glance.

“Hi Dolly, Peter. Hello Rachel, how are you? Please come in,” they heard Carrol say. 

The Emersons were a handsome family of three. Peter was tall and broad-shouldered. He had a limp from his military service in Iraq and the habit of tugging on his nose from time to time. His eyes were kind and his facial expressions always gave away his feelings, which did not matter since he would say them aloud first. Dolly Emerson was a busty woman with straightened black hair and unblemished skin that always seemed to result in Garrett’s being lost in thought. Rachel was around James’s age, but never talked to him. Instead she gravitated more towards the boy. 

Once Rachel and the boy made eye contact in the dim candlelight, she smiled. Her teeth were pleasantly crooked, perhaps to give the rest of her face an excuse to be almost perfectly symmetrical. “Hello, Connor,” she said. 

The painting was becoming more interesting. Details of it would have to be put in catalogues so that people would be able to fully comprehend its significance. The Louvre could not possibly contain all of the power this room had accumulated. Connor. She had said Connor. When was the last time the boy had heard his name? Sometimes he would forget he had a name. The forgetting would happen subconsciously. He would simply settle into a state of acquiescence, like a beetle that had been overturned too many times to care, its thrashing legs surrendering to the air. Connor’s iridescent shell had been muted overtime to the color of mud. But a glimmer came through when he heard his name pass Rachel’s lips. 

“Hello, Rachel,” said Connor. They smiled at each other for a moment longer, then focused their attention on what the adults were saying.

“No, that can’t be possible,” said Carrol.

Dolly was nodding her head vigorously. “It’s true. That’s what our nephew Bobby said.”

Garrett massaged the back of his neck with his right hand. When he took it away there were a few hairs stuck to his fingers. His eyebrows quivered and he inhaled slowly. “The whole country is in a blackout?” Garrett looked up. “Why? How? There wasn’t a storm. Nothing happened.”

“Did he say how long it would last?” asked Carrol, toying with the collar of her shirt.

“No, he didn’t. He just overheard his superiors talking about it in the hallway. It wasn’t the kind of thing he could ask them about. Probably very hush-hush,” said Peter. He was tugging his nose with more frequency now. Connor noticed bloodshot rivulets squiggling through the whites of his eyes.

“What do we do?” Connor asked.

The adults turned to him, then to each other. “I guess we wait,” said Garrett. 

The words sat stagnant between them, cradled by darkness.

• • •

There was a level of animosity people reached that turned back the clock of evolution to a time of battles fought with fangs and claws and eyes filled with bloodlust. This is what Clayton saw in his colleagues, these people with so much power. They were sitting around that table in a secluded bunker with as much rancor and salivation as a pride of lions, haunches taut, prepared to tear at a steaming carcass.

“This should be interesting, no?” a balding young man said. Clayton forgot what country he was the prime minister of.

“No,” said the Vice President. Every now and then she would click her pen, breathe through her teeth and flare her nostrils.

The only sound in the room was the occasional squeak from a slow moving fan. Clayton licked his lips and stared at the glass of water in front of him. He loosened his necktie. Someone was tapping their fingernails on the table.

“Well?” the Vice President said as she glared at a Ukrainian ambassador, though the question was rhetorical and directed at no one. The poor man squirmed in his chair and clutched his glass of water with a trembling hand. Then he intertwined his fingers and placed them on his forehead, looking down as if in prayer. Clayton would do the same, except he was sitting next to the President.

Suddenly the prime minister of France placed both of his palms on the table and stood up, his chair skidding on the polished floor. “This is absolute lunacy. We are playing a game with people’s lives. You’re all mad. Each one of you.” He attempted to move toward the door but was stopped by agents.

“Any unauthorized person who leaves this room will be detained in a United States federal prison,” said the President. He said it evenly, his face void of any sort of emotion.

The prime minister of France placed a hand lightly on his gelled hair and made a fist. His knuckles became white as he closed his eyes and whispered something under his breath in French. 

“People will eventually try to leave the country,” a Chinese ambassador said.

“It doesn’t matter. Most people won’t even be able to get to the airport. Highways will be overwhelmed. Gas stations will be overwhelmed. Supermarkets will be overwhelmed,” said the balding man. Clayton thought he saw him smile his insipid yellow smile. “Even if all of this did happen to leak, no one would be able to do anything about it. No matter what resources they have. It’s a brilliant—”

“Stop. Stop it, you sadistic pig,” the Vice President seethed. The room gasped in unison. “This is wrong,” she continued, turning to the President. “Don’t you understand how insane this is? We did this on a dare. Countries daredus to do this. What are we, in junior high?You must know this is wrong.”

Then there was a wispy voice that floated easily through the motionless air. It came from a frail old man that occupied his pilled suit like meager stuffing, his arms crossed over his sunken chest. He sat in the corner of the room, silent unless spoken to or unless inspired to speak, as he was now. “It is only a social experiment,” he said. The only things that moved were his lips. “Silly people. It is for a month. People will live, people will die, people will get hurt, perhaps starve, kill, rob. One could say that these are everyday things. We shall see after one week. For now, we wait. We watch. We listen. It is not that difficult.”

Hideki Endo was a different kind of man than most government officials were accustomed to. This frightened them. It frightened them even more that he was an internationally renowned psychologist. They were all like exposed pieces of simple code to him. Upon meeting someone, he would gradually dissect their idiosyncrasies, their nervous habits. “There’s something about that guy that creeps me out,” an intern had told Clayton before the power outage. “This might sound weird, but I feel naked in front of him. He strips people naked with his eyes, you know?” 

Clayton did know. He could see the stacks of data piled in the depths of Hideki’s mind. He may have appeared weak, but there was strength in those dark eyes. He was probably the only man who could assist in a government incited national blackout with a clear conscience. 

“No, it’s not that difficult,” the President echoed. “We must all look at this as a scientific experiment. We must all think of this in terms of psychology. Ladies and gentlemen, we have made the right decision for the union. This taste of anarchy will show the citizens of the United States of America why a strong government is needed. It will show the world that people simply cannot survive without guidance.” He said all of this while maintaining a steady gaze on his gold wedding band. Clayton had always thought it an ugly ring. It was a woven Celtic knot with minuscule rubies and emeralds studding the surface. It was gaudy, and often distracting in social situations. 

Clayton recalled that he could not stop thinking about it when he shook the President’s hand for the first time. “Let’s hope he has better taste when running the country,” he had thought. That felt like it was years ago. Clayton had been blinded by the marble floors and beautiful suits and money and power. He suddenly felt a fiery anger rise up from his chest to his face. It must have shown up as a grotesque expression, because the woman sitting in front of him stared at him with wide eyes and appeared distressed. 

“Mr. Secretary,” the President said, turning to Clayton.

“Yes, Mr. President,” Clayton responded, feeling the irrepressible urge to punch him in the face.

“What do you think about all of this?”

Clayton’s mouth became very dry. He picked up his water glass and finished it in two large gulps. He looked around at these people—a few of many animals who gave themselves a special name and invented the word dignity—and his eyes landed on Hideki. Clayton blinked several times. All he could hear was his own breathing, and all he could see were Hideki’s abyss-like eyes. Hideki held his gaze. “I think that we were born into anarchy. We survived it. We came out of it. And we will do so again.”

The President leaned back in his chair, patting his thighs with both of his hands and giving the room a reassuring smile. The Vice President frowned and gave the room her most disappointed sigh. Clayton stared fixedly at Hideki. The words Clayton spoke next sounded far away. They were outside of him, straddling two sides of an equation, one of which Clayton had always assumed to be reality. “But please do not forget,” he said, “that human beings invented god.”

Most people in the room looked utterly confounded. Others were utterly surprised. The President looked a bit annoyed. The Vice President looked a bit dejected. Eventually everyone was amused on some level, but no one more than Hideki Endo. The man laughed and laughed. Clayton did not know that he was capable of such an act. He laughed and laughed. He wheezed, he gasped, he guffawed. Clayton concluded that the whole world could go up in flames, and there Hideki Endo would be, laughing still.

Day Twenty-Five

Connor had watched the scraggly young man as he made his way down the street. He wore stained jeans that fell stiffly past his ankles and a dirty tank top. In his right hand he held a thin stack of papers. His face was caked with grime and was ineffectively covered by an unkempt goatee.

Homeless people seemed out of place in the daylight to Connor. He usually pictured them at night in a building’s nook lit by a streetlamp wearing a knitted cap and fingerless mittens. He also did not expect a homeless man to be walking around his neighborhood. But then again, many people seemed to be walking everywhere, running in fact, with an anxious demeanor and skittish reactions to the slightest sound. Connor had to remind himself that these were different times, menacing times. What had his parents called these kinds of people, with the manic look in their eyes? Animalistic. They had invented a new definition for the word. Animalistic: adjective meaning ‘to have the viciousness of a predatory beast.’ He was to stay away from everyone. He was to trust no one. It is a matter of life and death, they had said. There is no one to protect us. There is no way of contacting anyone. We need to stick together, they said. When had Connor’s family ever ‘stuck together’?

He was not supposed to be outside, but he was. And no one had found out just yet. Connor rested his head on his house’s gate. The hollow metal pipe it was made of had not lost the cool of the night. The temperature felt nice on his cheek. He decided to wait to hear what the young homeless man had to say.

Soon enough, the man stood before Connor. “Hey,” he said in a deep voice with phlegmy undertones.

“Hi,” Connor replied. “What can I do for you?”

A smile emerged from beneath the man’s wiry lip hairs. “Nothing. Just take this,” he said, handing Connor a leaflet from his stack. 

The paper was smudged with dirt, but the words were printed clearly. “Embrace the Darkness,” it read. “Darkness is Freedom,” was beneath it, and in small lettering beneath that, “Join the Anarchist Movement.”

The man waited for Connor to finish reading. Connor handed the paper back to him. “Anarchism is when everyone does what they want, right?” he asked the man.

“Yeah, sort of.”

Connor nodded pensively. “Someone thousands of years ago decided what they wanted was light,” he said.

The man chuckled, revealing gapped and yellowing teeth. He gently punched Connor on the shoulder. “You’ve got something, kid, you know that?” 

Connor smiled. “Nice meeting you.”

“You too, dude. Stay alive,” the young homeless man said, and continued walking down the street.

Connor watched him disappear around the block, then looked at the rubble that scattered the sidewalks. There were charred pieces furniture, broken glass, burning plastic, torn clothes. The Emersons’ house had been pillaged multiple times after they escaped. They had the foresight to get on the highways before the mass exodus began and no one could get anywhere. They went to Canada to stay with Peter’s sister. Rachel did not have time to say goodbye. Neither did Dolly, which Garrett seemed very upset about.

Now the windows of their house were shattered by a man and a woman who looked like they would have been nice to know before the blackout. Connor remembered the woman’s eyes. She had been crying. It was at night, but someone was burning down a house, so Connor could see that her cheeks were moist and her mouth was downturned and trembling. Before they robbed the Emersons’ house, the couple held each other for many minutes. Then they picked up whatever they could find to smash the windows with and scrambled over the jagged remnants. They emerged carrying clothes and a couple of pots and candles.

Connor made his way toward his house, using the family’s secret knock to enter. The door opened wide enough for him to show his face. Inside, James held a kitchen knife pointed at Connor’s stomach. “You aren’t supposed to go outside,” he said. 

Connor pushed his way through the door past his brother. “Chill out,” he mumbled.

“Connor,” his mother called from the living room, “help us move the couch to the door.” She placed her hands on her hips. “Were you outside?”

“Yeah,” Connor replied. “Sorry.”

“You would be even more sorry had something happened to you,” said Garrett.

Connor, James, Garrett, and Carrol moved the couch to the door with a few grunts and directives. None of them were strong or coordinated enough to flip it on its side so that it could cover the entire door. Garrett had not been able to find plywood at the hardware store to cover the windows—people likely stole all of it. But it would have to do. They had been lucky so far. At least we’re all together, Garret had said, perhaps for the first time in his life.

“Do we have food?” Connor asked.

“Yes, actually,” said Carrol. She seemed to hesitate before speaking her next words. “Salted fish. It should last us.”

“Fish? How’d we get fish?”

“Someone gave it to us,” Garrett said. “Early this morning. You were still asleep.” 

“Who?” asked Connor.

“A woman,” Carrol said. She wiped the perspiration on her forehead with the back of her hand.

“What woman?” asked Connor

Garrett and Carrol looked at each other. “Just some woman,” Garrett said. “What does it matter, Connor?”

“She was dying,” James said.

“James, please,” Carrol implored.

“What?” Connor said.

“Are you deaf? I said she was dying,” James repeated. Garrett grabbed his arm, but James pushed him away roughly. “Some goon jumped her. I guess he had a gun or something and shot her.” James walked over to Connor, shaping his hand into a pistol and pressing it against his side. “Right here. She was bleeding to death,” James continued, moving his face closer to Connor’s. “She was going to die. So she offered us the fish the guy who mugged her didn’t take.” He backed away grinning.

Connor was hyperventilating. He did not feel the tears well up in his eyes. “You didn’t do anything?” he managed to whisper. “She was dying, and you didn’t do anything?”

Carrol kneeled in front of him and took his hands. “Honey, there was nothing we could do. And we had to do something for us. We need to look out for ourselves right now.”

“You could have called an ambulance. I don’t know,” Connor sobbed.

“An ambulance? There aren’t any ambulances, stupid. We’re on our own,” said James. “The cops take care of their families, the doctors take care of theirs. Everyone fends for themselves. Your ‘I’m-so-charitable-and-nice’ act isn’t going to work right now,” he mocked.

“Be quiet, James,” Garrett said, his voice booming. Connor felt the ground shake. “Go do something useful for once in your life.”

James glared at his father indignantly and went to his room, slamming the door behind him. Gigi began to cry. Carrol got up and tousled Connor’s hair. Garrett went to the bathroom and began smacking the wall and denouncing life in an elaborate monologue. Connor thought he heard Dolly’s name once or twice. Carrol sighed. “I’m so sorry, baby boy. I know this is so, so hard. But we’ll get through it as long as we stick together.”

There was that phrase again. Connor had stopped crying. He rubbed his nose. Carrol bent down and kissed his forehead dryly. Somewhere in the distance, someone was playing “All You Need Is Love” on high volume.

• • •

Hideki had beaten Clayton at chess. This was not surprising. What was surprising was that Clayton had accepted to play the game after having seen several pictures of the country in havoc. He also heard the news that people were protesting and sleeping outside of the White House, asking for the President. Some had tried to break in, but were promptly electrocuted and paralyzed for the half hour that followed. Many had attempted to harness the electricity, but thankfully no one could find and successfully utilize the source. This is what a few agents had told Clayton. Then Hideki had asked, in his wispy voice, Would you care to play chess, Mr. Secretary? And Clayton said, Sure, why not? There were many reasons why not. Clayton was just choosing to ignore them. And besides, there was another, so much more apt response. Clayton should have said, Oh, but Doctor Endo, we’re already playing chess!

But that is not what Clayton said, so he decided to get inebriated. He deserved it. He had been in the stinking bunker for a stinking twenty-five days. And he knew that there was a secret cupboard on the third floor kitchen with a tall bottle of attractive gold liquid. He had discovered it on the tenth day, the day he mentally resigned from being an honorable man. It was too much work, and why should he work toward something with such an ambiguous definition?

He drank directly from the bottle. Because he could. He could do anything—he knew that now. He could dance around naked, he could spout tainted gospel, he could play chess, he could turn off every light in the country without giving it a second thought. But he had given it a second thought. And a third, and a fourth. The human mind was irritating that way. Clayton had thought so much about the blackout, he just might have gone insane were it not for the tall bottle.

The Vice President appeared at the door to the kitchen. She frowned like a mother watching her child roll around in the mud.

Clayton pointed at her. “Don’t you look at me like that,” he slurred. Then he pointed at himself. “I’m a grown man. You’re a grown man. We’re all grown men here in Tinseltown.” He took another swig. 

The Vice President made her way to the cupboard, grabbed a cup, and filled it with Clayton’s drink. Once she finished, she put the bottle and the cup back in the cupboard. She leaned against the counter with Clayton. “That’s good stuff,” she said.

“Yup. High quality. Fit for a king,” said Clayton.

“I think we’re going to turn on the lights soon,” said the Vice President.

“Are we? Just like that. Well, that’s wonderful news, isn’t it? Just great,” said Clayton, brushing back the stiff strands of hair that fell on his forehead.

“The President wants to see you.”

“I’d better get going then,” he said with a hiccup. He pounded his chest lightly. 

“He’s on the fifth floor.”

Clayton turned to face the Vice President and kissed her hand. “Madame Vice President, I have always thought that you have beautiful eyes.” He placed an index finger on his lips. “That’s top secret information, though. No telling the country.” 

The Vice President smiled at him. “It’s been real, Clay.”

“I’m proud to say I used to know what that means, but I can’t see too well in the dark,” Clayton said as he walked away. With each step he made toward his meeting, Clayton grew more sober, and this made him unhappy. 

The bunker was on a hill in an unknown part of the Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland, forty minutes from Washington, D.C. The fifth floor was half a story aboveground and overlooked the U.S. capital. On a typical evening, one could see the lights of the city interrupting the night sky, but now the sky was a sheet of stars, and Washington was a lump of darkness blotting out the natural light. 

Clayton found the President studying what was visible of the skyline through the space between trees. He approached him and stood silently next to him for a moment.

“The Vice President said you wanted to see me,” Clayton said.

“Yes,” the President replied. “I wanted you to be the first to see the lights come on. I just made a phone call. It should happen any minute now.”

“A phone call,” Clayton mused.

“It will take a while for all the power companies to get the message,” said the President. There was a silence. “I’ll be sorry to see them go,” he continued.

“See what go, sir?” Clayton asked.

“The stars.”

Clayton felt he should have laughed or cried or reacted in some way, but the liquor had numbed his mind, so he did nothing. “I have a degree in philosophy,” he said.

“I don’t think I knew that,” said the President.

“Not many people do.” Clayton inhaled deeply. “All that time reading and thinking and nothing to show for it but a headache.”

The President nodded solemnly. “I sometimes imagine myself driving down a straight highway, and the cars that pass me in the opposite direction are the lost answers to questions I’ve been mulling over.”

Clayton closed his eyes, and when he opened them, there was light.

• • •

Now Connor knew what it was like to be a cornered animal, because he was a cornered animal. His back was pressed against the wall, as was James’s. Garrett shielded them with his body as best he could. Carrol and Gigi hid in the basement once the pounding on the door began. Connor was supposed to be down there as well, but by then the vicious man with wild eyes had already breached the interior of the house.

The man was wearing what used to be a good suit, but the garment was now torn and singed in several places. His face was streaked with soot, and his blond hair was in disarray. His lips were drawn in so that his teeth were visible. Connor noticed that they were good teeth. He would have complimented the man if this were any other situation. But he was holding a gun in his shaking right hand, and a knife in his shaking left. Connor thought this was a bit excessive. Then he asked himself how he was calm enough to make such a judgement. James was whimpering quietly. Garrett looked as if he was sleeping. There was a clattering noise when the man dropped the knife to steady the hand holding the gun. Connor was unsure about whether he wanted to die with his eyes opened or closed.

The intruder opened the safety catch, and at that moment the lights came on. The next moment, the vicious man was a piteous man wailing on his knees. “I’m a lawyer, dear God, I’m a lawyer!” he cried. Garrett, James, and Connor reached for each other blindly for an embrace, and soon Gigi and Carrol joined them, and many minutes later when they had finished embracing, Connor embraced the lawyer, because the lawyer was a man, and men were mortal, and mortals live on light.

Volt © Safira Schiowitz