Wednesday night the lights went out, the TV stopped spewing verbal abuse, and the Fusebox #9 hid away from the storm. All I had left were candles and a book I've read many times before.

I got to wondering as the shadows danced around words I've known well since before high school that this is what reading was for six thousand years before the disingenuous battle between fluorescence and incandescence. This is how forbidden manuscripts were copied in the darkest years, how fathers and the ghosts looking over their shoulders captivated children when parchment came at a premium and security was measured in ink. This fairy flame and its faint scent of french vanilla and old paper.

Sometimes I wish the lights would never come back on.