Hot air hangs like a dead man from a white oak tree.
People sitting on porches thinking how things used to be.
Dark night… dark night.

- Dark Night, The Blasters

§ § §

Psycho House
Dark night indeed… perhaps many of them. Cold too.

Global warming or not the world is in a tizzy, climatically speaking. The Lower Mainland area of British Columbia and the entire Northwest of America was hit with the biggest rain and wind storm in recorded history two days ago. One area just off Vancouver Island recorded a wind speed of 157 km/h - that’s hurricane territory.

So, it’s no wonder that as I write this there are still over 250,000 people without power in the Lower Mainland area. Guess where I live…?!

I went home last night after work around 6:00pm. It was dark as usual and the ride home took longer than normal due to pockets of power outage which affected traffic lights and the like which in turn made every driver crazy (What do I do?! What do I do?! Is it my turn?! Can I go now?!) Je-ZUS! Learn how to drive, will ya!

Crazy black dark once I get off the bus at the end of the line. Walk around the corner, retrieve my trusty flashlight from my briefcase (Scouts motto still resonates apparently!), and negotiate my way to the top floor of my condo and eventually my suite door. No lights — emergency or otherwise — and it’s as cold inside as out - around two degrees centigrade.

I turn on the battery-operated radio to see if I can find out how long the power outage here will last… the batteries die. As I stand in the kitchen cursing my stupidity at not buying fresh batteries when I had the chance, the batteries in the flashlight start to die. My shadow (it is me, isn’t it?!) wiggles on the far wall of the dining room. Fuck!

I have candles and matches, but I need to turn on the lights to find them. Double fuck! So much for the Scouts motto, I guess!

It doesn’t seem too cold and I give the idea of having a shower in the dark a thought (gas water heater) and then jumping into bed for the duration. But then I consider those shadows (why are they moving when I’m standing still?!) and remember that scene from “Psycho.” I don’t give it a second thought.

I use what power is left in the flashlight to see what I’m doing as I pack my toilet kit into my backpack and decide to return to the office. At least the power is on there and I can WiFi my brains out, finish up a little work and even watch TV if I wish. Pizza place downstairs, liquor store across the parking lot, couch in the office, no third-party shadows on the wall… damn, why did I ever leave?!

The two block return walk to the bus stop was surreal.

Consider the darkest place you’ve ever been - physically, not emotionally, we don’t know each other well enough for that conversation. Now double it! That’s how dark it was.

I estimated that I had a minute or two of weak light left in my flashlight before it completely gave up the ghost, and began my two-block trundle back to the bus stop.

I needed that light as weak as it was. I literally could not see my hand in front of my face. Nor my feet, which considering the state of the sidewalk, roads and curbs — still snow covered — made the usually short trip more trepidatious. I walked in my own diminishing pool of light.

But the sky…!

The last time I saw a night sky like that was in the Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico back in July. But you never expect to see such clarity around Vancouver because of ‘urban reflection’. It was truly a sight. It was as if someone had glued a million diamonds onto a black velvet ceiling. An old analogy, and not one I would ever have expected to use in Vancouver, but that’s what it looked like. I stared in something resembling awe.

I walked straight into a lamp standard.

My reverie quashed, and the sound of a bell that had lost its clapper echoing off the invisible buildings, I became aware of other small, shaky pools of light. I hoped they too were accompanied by humans and not some netherworldly hooded fangsters.

I walked past a young couple only a meter away, two flashlights passing in the night. I’ve walked that walk a thousand times over the years, day and night. I could’ve said I could walk it blindfolded. But here I was, as blind as any blind man, and even with a flashlight, weak as it was, I had to concentrate hard to stay on the sidewalk.

Two buses and an hour later I made it back to the office - the warm, well-lit office.

The couch in the waiting area that’s looked so inviting all these years revealed itself to be as comfortable as a packing crate stuffed with marbles. But the place was warm and sleep seemed like the best antidote for the cold shadows that were ‘party hardy’ back in my apartment.

As I started to drift off I opened my now heavy lids one last time. I could barely make out the shadowy images of two vampires chowing down on some poor hapless victim. I think that’s what it was. Couldn’t tell for sure. Might’ve been a swaying tree. No - definitely two vampires chowing down on some poor hapless victim.

This hotel sucks. And I didn’t tip the maid.