Mia kept the list taped to the inside of the pantry door, beneath the looped handle of a canvas grocery bag. It wasn’t fancy—just a page from a yellow legal pad with ten bullet points that had started as scribbles after a citywide drill last spring. Over the months, each note had accreted sub-notes: arrows, parentheses, stubborn reminders in thick marker. Now, on a gray Thursday afternoon in October, she read it aloud to her apartment like a small incantation.
“Water. Light. Heat. Food. Comms. Sanitation. Meds. Safety. Cash. Comfort.”
She’d mocked herself the week she wrote it, when the evening news ran footage of people stacking bottled water like prize-winning pumpkins. She had laughed, then bought two gallons on the way home, then four more a week later, until she had a neat row of them tucked under the bottom shelf. It turns out you didn’t have to be a doomsayer to understand that the grid wasn’t a person, didn’t owe anyone anything, could simply fail.
She opened the pantry and ran through the “Water” section. Twelve gallons, sealed. A pair of water bricks by the door. Two foldable jugs hanging from hooks beside the mop. The bathtub bag—an ungainly plastic bladder Mia had found online—was rolled up like a camping mat on the top shelf. She set it on the counter.
The forecast hadn’t mentioned disaster. It wasn’t a hurricane or a blizzard or anything cinematic—just “elevated grid stress” and “possible service interruptions” during a heat wave that had lasted too long into fall. But earlier, on her way back from the bus stop, she’d noticed the power company trucks idling at the end of the block and something in the way the crew chief stared up at the high-tension lines convinced her to move up the checklist from Sunday to now.
“Paranoid, party of one,” she said to the quiet kitchen.
Her phone buzzed. A text from her brother, Alex.
You seeing the news?
Which news?
Rolling blackouts likely. They say 2 hrs at a time. You good?
I’m doing the thing.
Of course you are. Turn your freezer to coldest. Love you.
You too.
Mia opened the freezer and checked the dial. It was already at max cold, a habit she’d adopted after Alex sent her that article about how to keep food safe when the power’s out longer than you expect. She slid a zip bag of ice cubes across the shelf. Beneath, a layered sheet of frozen water bottles—her own makeshift ice bank—glinted like fish under milk glass.
“Light next,” she said.
Under the sink: three LED lanterns, a tangle of headlamps, a shallow tub of AA and AAA batteries labeled in block letters. She clicked each lantern on, counted silently to three, clicked off, and set them on the counter. The headlamps got the same test; when the second one flickered, she replaced the batteries and folded the strap into a tidy figure-eight.
She turned to the windows. The apartment faced north, a two-bedroom on the fourth floor of a brick building that smelled like dust and coffee at all hours. On her first day here, she’d loved the steady light from that big bay window; now she knew its limits. If night fell and stayed, she’d need her own sun.
“Candles?” she asked herself, and answered with a small shrug. She set five unscented pillars on a ceramic tray and placed a metal lighter beside them. She had learned about candle safety after her upstairs neighbor scorched a bookshelf during last winter’s snowstorm. Never near curtains. Never on wood. Never left alone.
“What’s next,” she murmured, “heat.”
Heat meant layers—wool socks, the thick sweater her late grandmother had knitted with a pattern that looked like waves. It meant the small butane camp stove she kept on the top shelf in a plastic bin labeled COOK, and the bright orange carbon monoxide detector she’d bought after reading about people who tried to grill indoors when the city went dark. She checked the detector’s test button; it chirped cleanly. The sound was both comforting and a little terrifying.
“Food,” she said, and smiled. If the blackout didn’t come, she could still make dinner from these shelves. The “no-cook” bin held peanut butter, crackers, canned fruit, tuna, and those ridiculous shelf-stable puddings she always pretended to buy for hypothetical children. Another bin, labeled “heat-optional,” had rice, pasta, canned beans, lentils, bouillon, and two jars of tomatoes. She pulled out a can of chickpeas and a tin of fish and set them by the cutting board.
On the sticky note attached to the “Food” section she’d written: Eat the fridge first. It was both a command and a promise to herself to resist the panic-eating of cereal by headlamp. If the power went, she’d use the perishables while they were still safe, transform the leftovers, turn the eggs into frittata over the camp stove and keep the door shut the rest of the time like it hid a sleeping baby.
Her phone buzzed again. This time, it was Mrs. Alvarez from 4B, the woman who adopted everyone on the floor with a plate of pastelitos at New Year’s.
Mija, you hear about the lights?
I did. Do you have water? Batteries?
I have my Virgin candle and a jug. And a transistor radio from 1998.
Okay. Do you want me to bring you a lantern?
I’ll take one. If the power goes, I’ll trade you empanadas for your troubles.
Deal.
“Comms,” Mia said, and crossed to the hall drawer where she kept the crank radio. It wasn’t pretty, but it picked up the weather band and AM, and there was something soothing about the whine of its tiny dynamo turning light into a human voice. She checked the battery pack and set the radio beside the lanterns.
A new bullet point she’d added over the summer read: Neighborhood net. It wasn’t formal—no walkie-talkies or call signs—just a group text for the building that had started when the elevator broke in June. She opened the chat.
Hey all, heads up: power company says rolling blackouts likely tonight. If anyone needs batteries or an extra lantern, I have a few. If you have meds that need cooling, DM me now—we can figure out options.
Neon thumbs-up emojis rolled in. A few jokes about reading by candlelight. Then a quiet message:
This is Jordan in 4D. I’m insulin. I have a small cooler but not much ice.
I’ve got ice packs in my freezer, Jordan. I’ll bring some over if the power goes. We can set up a rotation with people who have coolers.
Thank you.
Mia typed “Sanitation” on her list with her finger as if writing it into the air. She had remembered the basics: extra trash bags, a bottle of bleach, hand sanitizer, a stack of wet wipes. Last winter’s water main break had taught her that clean wasn’t a default; it was something you had to guard. She positioned a lidded pail near the bathroom in case the building’s pump cut off and the toilet stopped filling.
“Meds,” she said, patting the small pouch where she kept her own: ibuprofen, allergy pills, a refill of the inhaler she hadn’t needed in years. She texted Alex again.
Do you have your epi pen?
Yes, mom.
Don’t make me drive over and check.
You can’t drive in a blackout. The lights—
I know how cars work, thanks.
She added “Safety” with a marker star: check smoke detectors (good), test the door lock (smooth), find the wrench for the gas line (in the toolbox, labeled). She’d watched a video about utility shutoffs and had a healthy respect for the things that ran invisibly through her walls.
“Cash,” she said, and opened the tin where she kept a modest stash. Power out often meant card readers down and ATM lines like movie premieres. She counted out small bills, tucked them into an envelope, and wrote “for coffee or favors” on the front.
“Comfort,” she finished, almost shy about it, but she’d learned that morale was as tangible as bread. She pulled a small bag from a lower drawer: a paperback novel with a creased spine, a pack of playing cards, a tiny tin of mints, a bar of chocolate she’d sworn she would save. She added a printed crossword book—ink and paper, no batteries.
The apartment was quiet except for the hum of the fridge. Outside, a siren wandered up the avenue and faded. Mia filled the bathtub bag from the tap, the plastic rising gradually until it was a plump, translucent hill under the bathroom light. She turned off the faucet and listened to the drip settle.
Her front door opened with a neighborly knock, and Mrs. Alvarez’s voice floated in.
“Mija, I brought the empanadas in advance. Insurance.”
Mia smiled, walked to the door, and opened it. Mrs. Alvarez stood there with a foil-covered tray and a look that mixed humor and worry.
“You’re doing your… protocol?” Mrs. Alvarez asked, making a little circle with her free hand.
“I am,” Mia said, handing her a lantern. “You can call it my ritual. Want to see the radio? It’s like the old days.”
“Old days for who, niña? For me it’s yesterday.” She laughed, then glanced down the hallway. “Jordan okay?”
“Anxious about his insulin. I’ll share ice if we lose power. We’ll figure it out.”
“Bueno. I will make coffee on my stove if the gas holds.”
“The detector will squeal if it shouldn’t,” Mia said, then realized how stern she sounded. “I mean, I’ll check on you.”
“Who checks on you?” Mrs. Alvarez asked, head tilted.
“You, I hope,” Mia said, and they both smiled because that was how it worked: one person’s carefulness anchoring another’s impulse to shrug it off.
The house lights fluttered, just once. They both looked up as if the ceiling might answer.
“See you soon, mija,” Mrs. Alvarez said, and pressed the warm tray into her hands. “Just in case.”
Mia set the empanadas on the table and checked her phone again. The power company’s app displayed a polite banner about “load shedding schedules.” Two hours off, four hours on. It was almost civilized on the screen, but she had lived long enough to know that scheduled disruptions had a habit of turning into unscheduled tests of patience.
She walked through the apartment slowly, touching objects as if memorizing their locations for when the light became something you had to choose and ration. The kitchen window showed a sky the color of a bruise. Somewhere in the building, a child laughed, and somewhere else, someone dragged a chair across a floor. Ordinary sounds, Midsummer habits hanging on in autumn.
When her phone finally vibrated with one more message—this one from the city’s emergency alert system—it felt less like a surprise and more like a cue to step onto a stage she’d been rehearsing for.
Due to high demand, rotating outages may begin this evening citywide. Conserve energy where possible. Check on vulnerable neighbors.
Mia put the phone facedown, took a breath, and turned to the list. She drew a small box beside each word and checked them off one by one. Water. Light. Heat. Food. Comms. Sanitation. Meds. Safety. Cash. Comfort.
“Okay,” she said to the apartment, to her building, to the city beyond. “We’re ready to practice being a house again.”
The lights flickered a second time, held, and then, as if obliging her wish to free her from indecision, went out.
“Showtime,” Mia whispered.
She thumbed on the nearest lantern. It bloomed into a soft, steady circle of light that caught on the ceramic tray, the crank radio’s dial, the rolled towels, the plastic water hill. She listened to the refrigerator power down to a guiltless silence, and with her spare hand, reached for the chocolate bar in the comfort bag and, for now, did not open it.
The lantern’s light painted long shadows across the apartment. Mia set it on the kitchen table, resisting the urge to pace. The hum of the fridge had vanished, and in its absence the silence felt both spacious and uneasy, like the pause before someone answered a difficult question.
From the hallway, she heard doors opening, voices carrying. A child asked if the TV was broken. Someone laughed, too loudly, to cover nerves. Mia cracked her own door and found Mrs. Alvarez holding the lantern she’d been given, its glow catching her silver hair.
“Two hours, they say,” Mrs. Alvarez reported. “We’ll see.”
“Two hours is practice,” Mia said. “We can do that.”
Across the hall, Jordan from 4D appeared, a slim cooler in his arms. His expression was caught between gratitude and embarrassment.
“Sorry to bug you already,” he said. “Could I… grab those ice packs?”
“Of course.” Mia darted back inside and returned with three frozen packs wrapped in towels. “Keep them insulated. Don’t open unless you have to.”
He nodded, clutching them like something fragile. “You’re kind of the floor’s captain, huh?”
Mia laughed, though the sound came out thinner than she intended. “Just organized. My brother calls it obsessive.”
“Well,” Jordan said, “obsessive might save me tonight. Thanks.”
When she closed her door again, the apartment seemed less like a box cut off from the world and more like part of a hive—each unit lit by its own candle, lantern, or voice. She turned on the crank radio and spun the dial. A crackle, then a flat voice: “This is the emergency broadcast system. Rotating outages will continue overnight. Stay calm, check on neighbors, conserve water, and use safe lighting methods. Do not use grills or open flames indoors.”
She set the radio down, its faint hiss a kind of company.
At 9 p.m., she sat at the table with an empanada and a notebook. The first bite was flaky and warm; she tried to imagine Mrs. Alvarez shaping the dough by candlelight. She made a note: Food morale > calories alone. If she ever revised her list, that would go under “Comfort.”
Her phone was at 67%. She dimmed the screen, switched on battery saver, and tucked it away. She’d charged a small power bank earlier—one more invisible line of defense.
The city outside had changed. Through her window she saw the usual constellation of apartment lights, now pocked with dark squares. Streetlights flickered in patterns like blinking eyes. Somewhere a generator rumbled to life, stubborn and steady. Distant sirens cut through the night; whether they were for the blackout or simply the city being itself, she couldn’t tell.
A knock startled her. When she opened the door, Alex stood there, slightly out of breath, a backpack slung over his shoulder.
“You walked?” she asked.
“Bus broke down three stops away. Figured my little sister shouldn’t sit in the dark alone.” He slipped past her, pulling out a flashlight. “You’re really set up. Wow. Is that a bathtub water bag?”
“Don’t mock the tub bladder,” she said, smiling despite herself. “Empanada?”
He took one, sat, and looked around. “Feels like camping. Except we’re four stories up.”
“That’s the point. Make it bearable.”
They ate in quiet, the lantern light soft between them. When Alex finally spoke, his voice was low.
“You remember the storm when we were kids? The one that took out power for three days?”
“Of course. Mom boiled water on the fireplace. We thought it was an adventure.”
“Yeah. But I remember how she looked when she thought we weren’t watching. Scared stiff.”
Mia nodded. “That’s why I make the lists. So I don’t end up with that face.”
He tapped the paper by her elbow. “Then keep making them. Maybe I’ll even steal one.”
At midnight, the lights flickered back on. The fridge sighed awake, the stove clock blinked 12:00, and across the hall someone cheered. For a few minutes, relief ran through the building like a current. Phones went back on chargers. TVs flicked on. Showers started up.
Mia didn’t relax. She’d read the fine print: two hours off, four on, rotating until further notice. This was only intermission.
She repacked the ice packs into the freezer, checked the lanterns, and wrote in her notebook: Lesson one: treat the “on” hours like borrowed time. Cook, charge, freeze. Don’t waste.
When the lights cut out again at 4 a.m., she was ready—though the sharp edge of fatigue made the darkness feel closer. She curled under her grandmother’s sweater, radio humming low, and let the city’s blackout settle around her like an old, unwelcome blanket.
By the third outage, the building had changed. The first night had been novelty, the second a challenge, but by the end of day two the rhythm of four hours on, two off began to fray.
Phones dipped toward single digits before the next “on” window. Freezers sweated. Tempers sharpened in the stairwell where heat pooled like a forgotten oven. People began to trade what they had—candles for batteries, soup cans for bottled water, jokes for calm.
Mia kept her notebook open. The list had sprouted paragraphs: Use blackout time for sleep, chores in power hours. Freeze bottles when grid returns. Share radio updates aloud—reduces rumors.
She made herself the unofficial town crier. Every six hours, she cranked the radio, listened to the dry voice reciting outage zones, then scrawled a summary and taped it in the lobby. Neighbors who once brushed past without eye contact now gathered by the elevator like pilgrims reading scripture.
On the second afternoon, Jordan knocked again, cooler in hand. His eyes were tired, but steadier.
“I swapped with Mrs. Alvarez,” he explained. “Her nephew works at a bodega, brought extra ice. Want me to rotate your packs back?”
“Good idea.” Mia guided him inside, setting the lantern on the counter. “How are your levels holding?”
“Okay. Not great. But better than yesterday. Having a system helps.”
He hesitated, then added: “I didn’t expect… community. Usually everyone hides behind doors.”
Mia smiled, a weary one. “Darkness pulls people out, I guess. You can’t ignore your neighbor when you hear them moving around in the hallway.”
Jordan laughed softly. “Or when they’re singing. Did you hear 3A last night?”
“Terrible voice,” Mia said. “But the lullaby worked.”
That evening, Alex suggested something unusual.
“We should eat together. Everyone. One floor at least.”
Mia frowned. “You mean, share food?”
“I mean, share morale. Mrs. Alvarez will cook if the gas holds. You can coordinate. People are restless, and restless gets reckless.”
The idea made her stomach twist. Her pantry was planned for her, not a crowd. Yet she saw the wisdom. Fear fed itself in silence; it shrank when people laughed with full mouths.
So, when the next blackout came, the fourth floor gathered in the hallway. Doors stayed propped open with sneakers and chairs. A line of mismatched candles flickered in jam jars. Someone had dragged a folding table into the center and covered it with foil trays: Mrs. Alvarez’s rice and beans, a salad from the couple in 4E, crackers and peanut butter from Mia’s stores, Jordan’s last carton of juice.
It looked meager, but when they sat in a circle on the carpet, it felt like abundance.
Conversation started slow, then quickened. Stories of other blackouts surfaced—blizzards, brownouts, storms from childhood. Alex teased Mia for being “apocalypse librarian,” and Mrs. Alvarez wagged a spoon at him, saying, “Better a librarian than a fool.”
When a neighbor from 4F admitted she had no flashlight, only a scented candle, Mia handed over a spare headlamp without hesitation. The woman’s relief was disproportionate, as if Mia had given her a lifeline. Perhaps she had.
Jordan raised his juice box in mock toast. “To surviving the practice round.”
“Practice?” someone asked nervously.
Mia caught the tone, and answered firmly: “Yes. That’s all this is. And look—we’re passing.”
They clinked cups and boxes, laughter threading through the dim hallway. For the first time since the outages began, the darkness felt less like an enemy and more like a backdrop for something human.
Later, as she gathered plates, Alex whispered, “See? Not just obsessive. You’re keeping people steady.”
Mia wanted to dismiss it, but when she looked at the circle of faces glowing in lantern light, she realized he was right.
The blackout was stretching them, yes—but it was also binding them together in ways daylight never had.
The rhythm ended on the fifth night.
At 10 p.m., lights clicked off as expected. Mia counted the minutes, checked her watch, reassured herself it would return by midnight. But when two hours passed, then three, then four, the building grew restless.
By dawn, the power still hadn’t returned.
She woke to the sound of arguing in the stairwell. Voices sharp, frantic. Someone had gone looking for a charging station the city promised, only to find a line three blocks long and tempers fraying. Others muttered about food spoiling, about parents needing formula, about how two hours had turned into forever.
Mia turned on the crank radio. The broadcast was grim: Unexpected infrastructure damage. Restoration delayed. Prioritize conserving fuel, water, and perishable food. Community shelters available at designated zones.
She scribbled the notice and taped it in the lobby. When she looked up, half the floor was already gathered.
“We can’t wait,” said the man from 4E, his voice rising. “We’ll lose everything in the fridge. My wife’s pregnant. We need to cook what we can now.”
“And waste gas?” countered a woman from upstairs. “Nobody knows how long this lasts. What if it’s not just a few hours?”
Jordan stood quietly against the wall, cooler at his feet. His eyes darted to Mia.
She felt the weight of expectation. The “captain,” Alex had called her. She didn’t want it—but here it was.
“Listen,” she said, steadying her voice. “The radio says outages could last longer. That means we have to treat everything differently now. Freeze hours? Gone. So step one: eat perishables first. Cook together, share. Step two: conserve gas. Small flames, group meals. Step three: protect the vulnerable.”
She looked at Jordan. “That means medical needs go first. Anyone else with medication that needs refrigeration?”
Mrs. Alvarez raised her hand shyly. “My blood pressure meds keep better cold. Not like insulin, but…”
“Noted,” Mia said. “We’ll prioritize coolers and ice swaps. We’ll figure rotations.”
There was murmuring, less angry this time, more uncertain. But at least they were listening.
By noon, the hallway became a communal kitchen. Someone brought out a camping stove. Mrs. Alvarez boiled rice while another neighbor fried vegetables on a gas burner. Mia pulled eggs from her fridge and scrambled them over the tiny flame.
It smelled like resilience—and a little desperation.
They ate on paper plates, sitting cross-legged on the floor. For a moment, it almost felt festive, like a block party that had lost its street.
Then the silence outside pressed in. No traffic lights, no steady thrum of the city. Just sirens now and then, and the occasional helicopter chop.
That evening, Mia sat by her window, lantern dimmed to save batteries. Alex leaned against the wall.
“This feels different,” he said.
“It is,” Mia admitted. “Before, there was a schedule. You could plan. Now… we’re in the dark for real.”
“Think it’s bad? Like, bad-bad?”
She didn’t answer right away. Her list stared at her from the table, every box checked. But lists only worked when the rules stayed stable. This—this was improvisation.
Finally, she said, “It depends how long. We can manage days. Weeks… that’s a different world.”
In the hall, voices rose again, not in anger this time but in song. Someone had started humming, then others joined—half-forgotten tunes passed from one door to another.
Mia listened, heart tightening. The darkness had broken the schedule, yes. But it hadn’t broken the people. Not yet.
She whispered to herself, as if to the list, as if to the city beyond:
“Hold steady. One step at a time.”
The blackout stretched into a second full day, then a third. By then, the building had settled into something like a village.
Mia’s notebook had become less of a checklist and more of a logbook. She documented meal rotations, cooler swaps, and radio updates. She noted who had batteries, who had fuel, who had extra blankets. It wasn’t order imposed from above—it was order built step by step, in the dark.
The city outside was quieter than she’d ever known it. Without traffic lights, streets fell to a crawl. People walked in groups, carrying jugs of water, lanterns swinging like tiny moons. Rumors drifted in: of shelters overflowing, of fights in supermarket lines, of neighbors in other districts cooking together under stars.
Inside, the fourth floor kept its fragile peace.
On the fourth night without power, Jordan’s cooler failed. The last ice pack had melted. He stood in the hallway, pale, the weight of fear visible in his posture.
Mia was at his side before he could say a word. “We’ll figure it out.”
But before she could propose a plan, Mrs. Alvarez appeared, holding her Virgin candle in one hand and a small insulated bag in the other.
“My nephew brought dry ice,” she said simply. “Not much, but enough to stretch.”
She placed it in Jordan’s cooler. The relief on his face was like a floodgate opening.
He whispered, “I thought I was out of time.”
“You’re not,” Mia said softly. “Not while we’re here.”
The blackout ended just before dawn on the fifth day.
Mia was dozing against the wall when the apartment sighed awake: the hum of the fridge, the sudden glow of lamps left switched on, the mechanical beep of appliances reclaiming their place.
The building erupted. Doors slammed open, people shouted and laughed. Some cheered. Others cried. The hallway filled with neighbors hugging as though they had survived something larger than a mere outage.
Mia sat still for a moment, blinking at the brightness. She felt disoriented, as though the world had shifted back to an old language she barely remembered.
Alex dropped beside her, grinning. “Told you it was practice.”
She shook her head, smiling faintly. “No. That wasn’t practice. That was the real thing. And we made it.”
Later, when the building quieted and the city’s noise resumed—traffic horns, radios, the neon buzz of convenience stores—Mia stood in her kitchen.
The list was still taped to the pantry door. Some boxes checked, some smudged with notes. She reached for a fresh sheet of paper, tore it clean from the pad, and began a new list.
This one didn’t just say Water. Light. Heat.
It began with:
Neighbors.
Patience.
Sharing.
Stories.
Then she wrote the old words, the practical ones.
She taped the new list beside the old one and smiled. Because survival, she now knew, wasn’t only about what you stored in your pantry. It was about what you carried in the dark—into yourself, and into others.
And when the lights flickered again, just for a heartbeat, Mia didn’t flinch. She only reached for the lantern and whispered, almost with affection:
“Showtime.”