Dennis casually peered out between blinds at his neighborhoods empty streets as he was spent his time just idly watching and waiting for the hundredth time today.
Waiting for what and watching for whom, he couldn’t really say or explain his actions to anyone. It was more of an uncontrolled and somewhat compulsive gesture on his part that was born out of his curiosity about what had happened to the electricity and also his deep abiding general boredom that ensued by being totally In the realm of the technologically disconnected.
The power had been out for over three long days now and he had not settled into any other more proactive daily routine than the harmful constant wait, watch and think rut he found himself in.
Stand and stare while aimlessly passing the time but also he watched warily from a corner of the window at the unusually quite neighborhood for some kind of a sign or portent maybe hoping that a new emergency planner’s idea would miraculously come to him out of the blue and some how help him solve this mess that he and the rest of his beloved America’s humanity now found themselves facing.
He had spent most of his waking hours pondering about all the various possibilities of what he could, or would be doing today personally in preparing his household in order to be better prepared and ready to face the grim unknown of tomorrow.
“What the hell exactly will tomorrow bring?” That was the ever present and looming quandary he was in. This not so simplified self-questioning that kept rolling over and over ponderously in his mind. I got to be working on some kind of solution but I don’t have a crystal ball to forecast with he had already decided.
It was really starting to frazzle his psyche to be continually dwelling on this subject. The old guns guts and glory slogan from his soldier days wasn’t going to solve this problem and neither would any known emergency management plan he had ever had the privilege to work on. What to do? What to do echoed in his thoughts.
“Maybe I can read between the lines and get some kind of clue what’s going on in the world from the upcoming emergency broadcast radio announcement.” Dennis murmured to himself as he turned to check the wall clock to see how much time was left until the scheduled transmission...
“Damn I got another 15 more minutes to wait until air time,” Dennis fumed to himself. It was the not knowing that was driving him crazy. What had actually caused the electrical grid to go down?
Not that he expected the emergency broadcast would say anything other than a scripted emergency warning message and maybe some kind of reassurance from one of those talking head commentators. The radio played 24 hours a day and exactly on the hour you would hear the emergency broadcast system go off with that loud beeping noise and then the warnings and commentator would cut in.
“ You would think by now they could dispense with that loud blaring attention noise and just get on with the news or preparedness directives. We all know were in an emergency and you got our attention FEMA so just start talking and quit telling us that this as a emergency broadcast message and how to listen to it.
We got it ok Mr. Announcer! We mucho comprende already much more than we ever wanted too or ever thought we would have too listen to so much multi lingual transmissions of the same message.
After 3 full days of every hour on the hour of listening to that same message drone on and on, it became somewhat aggravating.” Dennis mused as he resisted the dumb urge to make sure the radio was going to function properly. Of course it would, he had put fresh batteries in it and checked it an hour ago.
The first time he had heard one of those “this is not a test messages” was still all too vivid in his mind.
“This is not a test; this is a service of the emergency broad cast