A Small Gray Dot

I smiled. My woman. She knew how much I loved my bacon in the morning.

The store opened at six and it was a few minutes after, so she hadn’t been gone long. That meant I had time to meet her before she got back because the Quick Mart was only a block down the street. Even if she’d gotten there as it was opening, she wouldn’t have started back yet. She could never go in and pick up just one thing; she’d cruise the aisles for other items every time.

Perhaps we could grab a cup of coffee at the little shop next door and she wouldn’t have to fool around with our sometimey coffee maker, which brought on cussing when, as she put it, “It just sits there smirking at me!”

I went back to the bedroom and threw on sweat pants, a tee shirt, and my sneakers. I stuck my cellphone in a pocket then glanced at the unmade bed hesitating. Last one out had to make the bed and Zoni would be pissed if I left it. I pulled up the sheets but decided to finish as soon as we got back. I grinned. Maybe I could convince her to climb back in with me for a few minutes since we had the morning free. I meandered back through the living room and noticed she’d not opened the curtain on our lone window in the room.

She loved it that our apartment was on an outer wall and that there was a side window through which there was a view of the park trees three blocks away and the tops of the uptown skyscrapers. When I’d mentioned that only the very tops were visible, she said, “Well, it may not be that great but it beats the view we get from our bedroom window!”

That was the red brick wall of the apartment building behind ours. I had to concede that she had a point.

Usually, the first thing she did in the morning was draw back the curtains and admire the view, but I supposed she had getting bacon on her mind and ducked out without doing it. I went over and pulled the curtains apart.

I blinked at the thick mist outside. With such a heavy fog, it would be hard to see. Now why would she go out in that, I wondered, bacon wasn’t that important.

Hoping she’d done her usual aisle cruise and was still at the store, I fished out my cellphone to tell her to wait for me.

“Call Zoni”, I said to the phone. It didn’t ring. I frowned and peered at it. “No signal indicated” was flashing at the top. That was unusual as I’d always been able to get good reception in the apartment. Annoyance edged its way into my mind and intermingled with a small finger of – not quite worry but more of a tinge of unease. I didn’t want her walking back in that murk alone.

I spun around and made my way out the door. I didn’t want to wait on the creaky, too-slow elevators so I dipped to the stairwell.

The lights flickered as I clattered down the three flights to the lobby. They steadied but as I reached the bottom and stepped out, they flickered again and then went all the way out enveloping the lobby in a gray gloom. I stopped and looked up. All the lights were out; even the little one between the two elevators was gone.

I stood there for a moment then shrugged and started across to the front door. Probably the rotten wiring in the building had struck again. The lights had taken a dive before. The landlord kept promising to get the problem fixed but was dragging his feet about it.

From behind me came footsteps and a voice. “Damn!”

I turned and Dave, one of our first floor neighbors, emerged from the hall. A frown had his bushy, gray-flecked eyebrows bunched together and resembling a brown and white wooly worm hanging over his eyes.

“Morning, Dave. Have we been visited by the lights-out fairy again?” I asked.

He peered at me over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. “Hey, Tenn. Yeah, looks that way. They went out as I was coming down the hall.” He heaved a sigh and shook his head. “Well, it’s not the first time. They’ll likely pop back on soon.” He glanced toward the lobby window. “I was going out for a jog before it starts heating up but, uh, that fog looks pretty heavy. Believe I’ll wait ‘til it lifts. Wasn’t anything on the weather report about it but they aren’t always right, you know.”

“True, but that’s why I’m going out. Zoni went to the Quick Mart to pick up something and I don’t want her wandering around alone in this, so I’m going to meet her. We’ll be right back.”

I peered through the glass in the door. I couldn’t make out the lamp pole at the sidewalk but even through the fog, I should’ve been able to see the glow from its light and I didn’t. That would mean it was out and with the fog being so dense, it should’ve been on.