Lockdown Summer

VII. Don't Move

Lockdown Day 20

Everything that could go wrong in a time like this happened today.

We had no power for at least seven hours.

I went out of the house and to the gate of the compound. Only our side of the street was dark. I heard from a neighbor that a transformer in our block broke and exploded. I was lucky it didn't happen on a workday, or I'd be screwed.

It's eight in the evening in the first week of April. All the windows were opened, and it still felt like an oven inside the house.

We had no candles. And we're dumb enough not to prepare for this emergency, so our phones were barely hanging on. Mine died after I used it to light the kitchen while Rica cooked.

"You don't have to cook for us all the time," I said.

"Haha...hahaha...haha... No. The last time one of you prepared food, it's so bland. Besides, I don't mind. I didn't finish HRM just to put my skills to rest."

We're also out of drinking water. With the power gone for hours, the refilling station at the end of the street failed to deliver. We only had a liter of Sprite left for the rest of the night and until our water arrived.

Pablo dug through our junk in one of the cupboards and found this tiny battery-powered lamp. It must've belonged to Dennis. He might've brought it as a souvenir from one of the weddings he attended. There were still pink and blue ribbons around it. To our surprise and delight, it had batteries and lit up.

We've already exhausted our allowances for food deliveries, and we're running out of supplies. Rica rationed the stuff in the refrigerator, so we're still alive. 

We ate the simplest dinner we had for weeks with that tiny source of light.

We stayed on the couch after and fanned ourselves.

Then our night turned worse when Pablo recalled the things he missed outside the house, the foods he missed eating, and the things he wished he should be doing.

That triggered Rica's meltdown. She began to incessantly walk around the living room while blubbing about different things at once.

She said she missed home; she wanted to leave; she wanted to run. Why did she even move to this city? She's unemployed and broke.

She couldn't breathe. And she meant it in a literal sense.

"Dude, Ricks, you okay?" Pablo asked.

But she kept on gasping and crying.

"Make it stop," he said to me. And he made it very clear that he's not amused.

I walked up and stood next to her, told her to stop moving, and took a deep breath before I wrapped my arms around her body.

"Look at me. Don't move," I said. "Try to take deep and relax breaths."

I held her tighter until I felt her eased.

She stopped gasping and crying until she's breathing normally again.

Then we heard Pablo shout, "woo!" as the light in the kitchen and the fan in the living room turned on.

I slowly moved away from her. I reached for my dead phone on the table and crashed back on the couch.

"Thanks," she said. "How'd you know it'd work?"

"My little brother has ADHD."