We had been in Toronto for exactly a week and had 4 days left. Every day all we did was shop; not much else had happened. Tomorrow a trip to Niagara Falls was planned, I couldnt wait.Then the lights went off.

to reach the ground floor.   When we reached the ground floor the hotel lobby was swarming with people. Some people were trying to check in but they weren’t able to because the hotel computers were down. Others were trying to buy things with their credit cards, but unless they had cash no one could buy anything. We made our way though the throng and sat in the restaurant on one of the couches.  We bought drinks. There was little left, so we had to have water.  People had panicked and bought everything in sight; no one had any idea how long the blackout would last. It was like a disaster movie, only this was real. Dad still wasn’t back; I was getting worried and I could tell that mum was too. I thought about going back to the hotel room, but staying on the ground seemed safer, even though it was only the power that had gone off.   We waited another hour in the gloom, then dad strolled up. It had taken him four hours to get through Toronto he said: all of the traffic lights had gone off and unsuspecting drivers had crashed into each other.   Other drivers had run out of petrol but petrol stations were powered by electricity, so they could not refuel. Their cars had run out of petrol and drivers had simply left them where they had stopped, blocking the road.   There was obviously nothing to do where we were; we climbed the stairs back to the room.   The next day we got up and made the tedious, but now familiar journey down the sixteen flights of stairs. There was no breakfast to be had at the hotel as no food had been delivered overnight.   The hotel staff were handing out free bottles of water to residents.  I took one, then went back for another and sneaked it into my bag.  Hungry, we left the dark gloom of the hotel behind us, walking through the large revolving doors and into the bright dazzling light of the outside world.   The first odd thing I noticed as I walked down the street was the number of people milling about. It was as if everyone was just out on the street talking. That was when I realised it wasn’t just our hotel, it was the whole city block. People had come out of the skyscrapers because of the lack of light in them.   I could hear conversations of confused people saying all different things.   ‘The whole city!’   ‘No, I’ve heard news from Oshawa, Montreal and Boston as well.’    My parents and I stepped inside a coffee shop, hoping to find the slightest slither of chair to sit down on and take stock of the situation.    ‘Hay!’ There was a man in the corner who was demanding everyone’s attention, he had a small battery radio in his hand. ‘I’ve got news off my radio. There was a fire in a generating station in upstate New York, the Darlington Generating station.’   ‘Have they shut the reactor down?’ A panicking voice from the crowd in the room shouted. He received dirty looks and abandoned that line of questioning.   The man in the corner carried on, but this time with a smile on his face, ’Guess what the Americans think it is? Terrorism.’ Everyone in the coffee shop burst out laughing. This particularly tickled me, the Americans think everything is terrorism and don’t like to take the blame.  I was laughing for 10 minutes.   I had been calm up to now, but had started to think about the consequences sudden power loss would have on a city that completely depended on electricity. Lifts would have stopped with people inside them, hospital life-support machines wouldn’t work if generators failed and people would have to be evacuated from the subway because it would be 20 degrees hotter down there than the sweltering heat wave on the surface.  In the summer months, Canadians rely on their air conditioning and suddenly they had been plunged into the broiling reality of an Ontarian late summer.   On the other hand, perhaps the situation would bring people together; there was no internet, no computers at all, no video. People were forced to socialise; they had no choice. What else could they do?  Perhaps there would be suicides, because people could not access chat rooms - the lack of electricity for even this amount of time could drive some people crazy.  There was a new power in the air.  People were seeing one another as if for the first time, and the atmosphere buzzed with their chatter.   I saw a newspaper stand with today’s paper. It must have been printed somewhere where the power wasn’t out. But it had a little note: ‘Because of production problems arising from the blackout, today’s edition of the post is shorter than usual. We apologise for any inconvenience’. I later found out that the whole newspaper had been produced with a few computers and a generator.   ‘Torches, batteries and wind up radios! All just 5 dollars each!’ There was a sudden rush towards the door and out onto the street. I waited inside for fear I might be crushed in the stampede.  A crowd had formed around a stall selling stolen goods, but no one seemed to care about that. They needed these things, just in case the worst came to the worst and the blackout lasted another night.   I heard someone say, ‘can you not use a bit of a break? Did you ever see the Toronto night? Tonight, you will see the stars.’   The knowledge was spreading fast now – ‘ Eastern seaboard? The entire Eastern seaboard?'   As we walked down the street we saw an ice cream parlour. The total lack of electricity and the added effects of the heat wave had meant that the owner was forced to either throw his produce away, or simply give it away to passers by; perhaps this would boost his sales later when the power came back on.   Quickly I gestured to my parents about the free ice cream and rushed over towards it.   I gazed at the kaleidoscope of ice cream, trying to make a choice.     ‘Hurry up!  It’ll melt before you get chance to eat it!’ joked the man behind the counter.I believed him. Hurriedly, I chose the mint chocolate chip.  Sure enough, the edges were already threatening to liquefy.  It was delicious.  I hadn’t had such delicious ice cream since Italy. It was a soothing gift in the heat of the dying afternoon. Mint chocolate chip and mango sorbet had always been my favourite flavours and these guys had everything! I did however have to have it in a small round tub instead of a cone, because these were cheaper and the ice cream parlour was already losing money. I could have stayed longer, but I left reluctantly when I could eat no more.   I made a mental note to remember the location of this oasis: I intended to go back there as a paying customer in the near future.   It was by now early evening, and as the dusk fell we turned westwards towards the hotel. The sun was going down and the fading light from the setting sun cast long shadows along the sidewalks.  People had stopped moving, and instead were sitting and talking. It was bizarre: no cars or other city sounds, just the sound of people talking. The shadows grew longer, then disappeared as we approached the hotel, swallowed by the hungry dark.  Everything was in darkness, broken only by the occasional flickering light of a candle, the occasional dot of glowing red from a cigarette, or the flash of a torch.   A disembodied voice floated out over the darkness and the murmur of conversations.  ‘Go to bed!  The whole world’s out of power.  Go to bed!’   Siobhan Miller  English Coursework