Power play

This post is an exercise I tried out just now. I wrote whatever sentence came to my mind. No editing, absolutely. I did not plan on any plot, no ending in mind. This is just to see what I can come up with by letting my mind go free. I enjoyed it.

She opens her eyes. The chandelier is going to fall down. The bear yawned. On TV  Oh no, it is the actor who resembles a bear. A dog barks in the street. The aroma of fresh filter coffee decoction tugs her nostrils. She closes her eyes again.

The chandelier goes back up. It is just swinging on the elastic rope that connects it to the ceiling. A lone spider is spinning a web on it. How on earth does the eight legged fellow get any sleep, she wonders. She goes back to sleep.

The AC sputters and goes off. Power cut time. Ugghhhh, she groans, rolls over and gets up from bed. Ambles down the hall to brush her teeth. She is all fussy about it like this: "I have to wake up, walk all this way, open the tap, squeeze tooth paste, put it on the brush, and brush. Twice. Why god, why me?!" First world problems in the third world. That is how confusing the situation is in the country.

Newspaper. No. This is not 1990. Facebook. Twitter. Gmail. Whatsapp. Checked. Coffee consumed. Off to bed again. No, 2 more hours before power comes. Cha.

Goes to the veranda. Vegetable vendor lady passes by, shouting "Keeraiiiii". A man cycles by, shouting "Pazhaya paper!". A kid bumps into an uncle's scooter. Uncle is raising his voice and calling upon all gods in heaven and all devils in hell to lend some sense to the kid. The smirks and runs off after bestowing a kick to the rear of uncle's scooter. Uncle drives away, his shouts over the engine's roar still lingering in the entire street's ears.

Eyes on the clock. Not even an hour down. The balcony offers time pass activities similar to those offered by the veranda. One hour passes. One more hour to go. She checks the mobile. Charge available. It is 10 AM. She mentally eliminates areas without power cut and shortlists ones likely to suffer a power cut now. Besant Nagar. Ok. Now the list is sorted and prioritized  based on the ability of each of her friends in those areas to sleep in spite of the sweat during a power cut and the degree of boredom or irritation they are capable of producing. This exercise takes only 2 minutes for her practiced mind.

She places a call. 

"Hey power cut here. 40 minutes more for it to be up again."

"I know. It is total shutdown today. It will be back up only at 5 PM."

She knows this friend is always a harbinger of bad news. Now if power does come back in 40 minutes, it will be "hence proved" that the friend is a liar. If it doesn't she is bad luck. She goes back to the veranda and sulks.