No End in Sight

Table of Content

Hell, at night there's very little of anything in sight:

Power Failure Lingers as Storm Slows Repairs

The police presence in the neighborhood is very impressive. So are the ConEd work crews we've seen plowing through the roadbeds of many streets in Astoria. I saw a crew on Steinway Street up to their shoulders in the street, flinging dirt out of the hole with shovels. Huge bundles of electrical cables snake out of open manholes and down the street, sometimes buried in trenches of fresh asphalt, sometimes out in the open. The mayor's command center is set up in the parking lot under the Triborough Bridge in Astoria Park, along with dozens of police vehicles. Sirens are the most common sound in the neighborhood, next to birdsong.

At least the weather is relatively cool today, but we groan every time it starts to rain, especially during the thunderstorms, because who's going to be working with electricity in the rain?

A friend was telling us about how all her Crohn's medication has spoiled. She has an elderly upstairs neighbor from Greece who has been throwing her spoiled fruit out her upstairs windows at the crews working in the streets. Our friend has tried to convince her neighbor that the workers aren't responsible for the power outage—especially since the sufferers of the fusillade had apparently been bused in from Pittsburgh to help with the repairs—but the neighbor is beyond reason.

I hope that feeling doesn't spread as the blackout drags on.

Author

William Shunn
William Shunn

Hugo and Nebula Award nominee. Creator of Proper Manuscript Format, Spelling Bee Solver, Tylogram, and more. Banned in Canada.

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