Last night I heard a big bump upstairs in Mr. A’s room. It was about 11:30 and I sat straight up. Something was off. My mom alarm was going off incessantly.
I couldn’t figure out what was happening. It was eerily quiet.
I laid back down, thinking I must have been dreaming, but then I heard it again.
I got out of bed and realized I couldn’t see a thing. That’s what was off; the power was out. I heard a beep in the hallway. “Oh great, please Lord don’t let the smoke alarm go off.”
“A?” I cried up the stairs. I heard shuffling and a knocking sound. I thought maybe he was knocking on his grandfather’s bedroom door since he was scared.
I stumbled into his room. I’m not kidding when I say it was pitch black. I could barely see the shadow of my hand in front of my face. There was no moonlight, no street lights.
I found A in his closet. He couldn’t find the door to his bedroom and had wandered in there and couldn’t get out. Poor kid. He was a bit panicked so I started repeating “it’s okay, it’s okay” as I directed him toward his bed.
We both crawled in and I snuggled up against him.
“Why is it so dark? Why is there no noise? No light?”
We laid there together, in the dark for at least 15-20 minutes – both awake, but not talking. I was freaked out. Every noise in the house made my skin crawl. Miss E started to cry out and I jumped up to run to her room. A yelled out “MOM!” and I had to assure him I’d be right back. Luckily E was just talking in her sleep, otherwise I was planning a big slumber party on the floor.
I went back into A’s room and he curled up against me. I rubbed his back and smelled his hair. I was supposed to be comforting him, but he was comforting me too.
I don’t mind the dark when there’s noise — the fan in my room, a noise machine, the lull of the air conditioner. But this complete silence? Creeped me out. My imagination was getting the best of me.
I awoke a few hours later to a flashing clock in my face and breathed a sigh of relief. The power was back. I made my way back downstairs and crawled in bed. There was noise; there was light. We were safe.
I may be 36, but there’s a small part of me that’s still a kid, wanting a night light and a snuggle to make me feel better. Good thing my kids aren’t opposed to me getting into bed with them.
This right here is why I could never live in the country. I need noise. (And when there’s an unexplained one, I blithely blame it on my cat.)
My cats wake me several times a week. I bolt out of bed, in a panicky sweat, only to find them staring at me. So rude.
Oh man. Probably the most scared I have ever been in my adult life? I was 8 months pregnant with Catie, we lived way out in the sticks, my (now ex-)husband was out of town for work, and a huge wind storm came through that knocked the power out in the middle of the night. Total darkness, total silence. It was terrifying.
I ended up putting a cast iron frying pan on the husband’s side of the bed, just in case anyone broke in & tried to murder me during the power outage. It was the only weapon I could think of. (This made “Tangled” infinitely funnier to me when it came out a few years later.)