Lights Out

[dotinthesky]

‘The lights will go out,’ my mom says every time it rains. ‘They always do.’

More often than not they don’t, but last night we were plunged into darkness as heavy rain battered our home.

I lit a candle and we sat around it in the lounge, waiting for Energisa to reconnect us. ‘When I was little, there was no electricity in town,’ my mom continued. ‘We had to wash before sunset and then sit in my grandmother’s dining room around a kerosene lamp. My uncles, who were teenagers, told us ghost stories and we went to bed terrified. I miss those times.’

I asked about my great-grandfathers and she said one of them was called Angelo, but they liked calling him Grandpa Angel. Just then the candle’s flame fluttered as if it were laughing.