wrong with the flashlight, too. Everything around it, except for the patch of light, had remained completely black.
The floor creaked and then she felt the weight of her husband against her left side. “You don’t have to sit right on top of me,” she said.
“Sorry.” He moved away from her. The disk of light reappeared, but failed to illuminate anything around it. “This is really weird,” Matt continued. “This flashlight is screwy.” His voice was shaky.
“Guess I should try calling,” she said, “even if they don’t tell us much.” She had stored the number for National Access Incorporated in both her cellphone and the landline phone in the kitchen after the last power failure. She fiddled with the cellphone again, but nothing happened. “I’ll try the phone in the kitchen.”
“Take the flashlight.”
She felt the cool metal cylinder against her palm and closed her fingers around it, then pushed against the slide with her thumb. At first she thought that the flashlight had died, and then she turned the cylinder toward herself and saw the small circle of light.
Her face felt cold; it was harder to breathe. She aimed the flashlight away from herself and saw the light disappear.
She heard Matt catch his breath, but he said nothing. During the last power failure, Matt had cursed National Access for a minute or two, cursed some more while trying to locate a flashlight, had tried and failed to get a call in to the power company, then had suggested that they relax and finish their wine and he would tell her about his latest project while they waited for the power to come back on. It wasn’t like him to sit there saying nothing at all.
Lydia stood up. Even with the flashlight on, she had to feel her way toward the kitchen. She crept through the dining room, expecting at almost any moment to get to the doorway and then around the corner to the countertop where the phone was located, but the kitchen felt far away, almost unreachable. Before she could take one step, she had to take half a step, then half of that half-step, then half—
Stop it, she told herself. The minutes seemed to crawl by before she finally touched the edge of the kitchen counter.
Late that afternoon, a middle school kid had called the library the library to ask what Zeno’s paradox was; Lydia had taken the call.
“You don’t need a reference librarian to answer that question,” she had told him.
“But I don’t understand the answer I found,” the boy replied, sounding close to tears. A homework assignment, she thought, probably one he had put off doing until the last minute, and maybe his computer wasn’t working and he couldn’t go online to search for more information.
“Well, let me put it as simply as I can,” Lydia said. “Zeno’s paradox states that an arrow will never hit its target, because it has to fly half of the distance to it first, and then half of that distance, and so on and so forth, so the arrow will never reach the target at all, because it has to traverse—move through—an endless series of halves.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Having to cover endless half-distances and never able to get where it’s going is a way of saying that motion is impossible. Or an illusion. Think about it.”
“Thanks, lady,” the boy said, sounding unconvinced.
At least she had made it to the kitchen, unlike the arrow forever kept from its target by halves. The power had only gone out for an hour last time, and for about half an hour a month ago, but there had been a high wind warning up earlier in the evening. There had been more such warnings lately, perhaps a sign of increasing climate change since this region had rarely been swept by such strong winds in the past, and the wind had been howling for at least a couple of hours, to the point where she had started to worry about the roof and the tree limbs that might come crashing down on the house. That was one thing they hadn’t had to worry about while living in the city, where the nearest trees of any great size were in the park a block and a half away.
She slapped the countertop. Her hand found the telephone; her thumb pressed the “Talk” button. Instead of a dial tone, all she heard was a distant whistling sound.
Lydia leaned against the counter. The silence outside was unnerving. No police sirens, overheard conversations, car alarms going off, or people calling out to one another or gabbing on the sidewalk. She bit her lip, tried the phone again, set it down, then turned off the flashlight. The darkness and silence pressed in around her; she turned on the flashlight again. The patch of light shone up uselessly at her, illuminating nothing, as though the light was being blocked by an invisible barrier, or else struggling to penetrate the ether scientists had once believed filled all of space.
She made the journey back to the living room and sat down on the sofa. “Any luck?” Matt asked.
“I couldn’t even get a dial tone.” She waited for him to curse or say something, but he was silent. “Wasn’t there supposed to be a full moon tonight?” She had noticed that earlier, on her office calendar at the library. Matt kept up on things like that.
“Yeah.”
“So you’d think we’d see some light through the blinds, wouldn’t you?”
“I was thinking the same thing. Maybe it’s gotten really cloudy. Maybe the clouds are really thick. That’s what I’ve been telling myself.” His hand slipped around her wrist. “But that doesn’t explain the flashlight. Light doesn’t work that way.”
“I know.”
She turned off the flashlight. They sat there in silence. This was what it must be like to be blind, Lydia thought. At last she said, “Maybe we should see how the people across the street are doing.” They had been living in this house for almost four months now, and she had still not met any of their neighbors, but Matt must know something about them by now, since he ran his business from home. “I mean, this is the third power failure since we moved here. Maybe they can tell us how often this happens.”
“They’ve got three kids,” Matt said. “At least I think all of them are their kids, the ones I saw playing on their lawn the other day. Hard to believe anybody can afford three kids these days.” He sounded a little more like himself. “Guy’s name is Olaf. He looks like an Olaf, too. He’s a big blond-haired guy who’s built like a linebacker and his wife is this little tiny thing with black hair.”
“What’s her name?”
“Don’t know. I only talked to the guy for a few seconds. He asked me what I did, and I told him Web site design and computer workshops for individuals and groups, and he asked if maybe I could design a Web site for him if he ever quits his job and starts a landscaping business. And that was it.” He sighed. “I could head over there, see if he’s found out anything.”
“I’ll come with you.” She fumbled for his hand, afraid of sitting alone in the dark; his fingers closed around hers.
They moved slowly toward the front door, clinging to each other. After long moments, Matt let go of her and then she heard the door creak open. The still air seemed even colder than it had been earlier, when the wind had started to pick up. It was as dark outside as inside the house; the other houses on their street were completely invisible.
“Matt,” she whispered. Even the thickest cloud cover wouldn’t have turned the sky this black; there would have
