El Apagón | The Blackout
Where were you when the lights went out?
12.33 pm on Monday, Spain went dark.
I am in the final stretches of the book. I’d dedicated the afternoon to editing, all efforts behind one final push. I’d spent the morning meeting our daughter’s teacher, polishing off two coffees, batting back enough emails to justify leaving my inbox alone, and pretty much finishing my daily procrastination rituals. Just as I was kicking off, the internet went down. I noticed the Wi-Fi before the electricity, a damning indication of how far we’ve come.
It looked like our whole building was out. So far, so normal—occasional block-wide blackouts aren’t uncommon here. I opened the doors to the back terrace, shouting to a neighbour ‘¿Tienes electricidad?’ before packing my laptop into a tote, assuming I wouldn’t have to walk far to find a connection.
On the streets, it was business as usual, quite literally: a local restaurant that does top-tier tapas was seating people in the dark. By the time I’d walked for 30 minutes up Avinguda Diagonal, a thoroughfare that cuts across the city, and still hadn’t seen a sign of power, I realised it was a biggie. Office workers were down on the streets. I heard some say “todo España” were without power, others suggesting France and Italy too. I even heard one guy say “y Inglaterra,” which felt like a stretch. Cars had pulled over, engines running and the radio on, crowds gathering to listen for news.
I spend less time thinking about the Roman Empire than the average man, but way more on doomsday scenarios. (The curse of The Last of Us strikes again.) I’ve often wondered: how might I fare during the end times? My buddy Carles can cook anything, build a fire, and I’m sure he’d be an excellent hunter, too. Me? I’m the post-apocalyptic comedy hire. I could come and tattoo myself with facts, like that crazy old fella in Furiosa, but that’s about it. For hours, we knew very little. Phone networks were still down, hours later—a dad in the class WhatsApp group works at national newspaper La Vanguardia, and managed to get a message out that power should be back on within 8-10 hours. We counted out our cash: €50. ATMS were down, but if this was the end of civilisation as we knew it, cash would cease to be valuable soon anyway. Maybe the kids’ Pokémon cards would finally be worth something. We picked them up from school early. Many parents had decided to do the same—some kids were cheering on being collected ahead of time. Our daughter, nonplussed.
We got them home. The freezer was still cold. The gas was running. I grabbed a pack of gyoza out of the drawer, found a set of matches, and got cooking. In the days since the blackout, it’s become the country’s most popular topic of conversation: what did you do when the lights went out? Some were at work, others at home. Pity the poor souls trapped on trains between cities, or, like a neighbour, trapped between floors in a lift. The blackout brought out the best of the country: the yin to the pandemic’s yang—one event forced us inside and onto our devices, the other brought the networks down and forced us outside, and together. There are videos galore of folks partying in plazas, shrieking in collective delight when the lights came on. At around 6 pm, kids safely home, I walked around our barrio, stepping into a nearby church, seeing several locals doing decades of the rosary. (Even though it was entirely in Spanish, and I’ve never been to Mass here, I’d recognise the cadence of that back-and-forth anywhere.) People came to be with their faith, to commune with those no longer with us. Everyone was looking for someone to talk to. Phones were down, but the Earth-to-Heaven network experienced no noticeable loss of service.
Talking to friends about el apagón, this moment has already become a litmus test for telling you all you need to know about someone. This was a test run, or as local resident Jesús Díaz wrote, “how it feels at the beginning of the end of the world.” What did you rush to buy when the lights went out? Some went for radios, others, tins of food. After realising the internet wasn’t an option, I took a notepad and pen and went to my local bar to get a beer, whilst they were still cold.
Who would you be at the end of the world?
Good Dadvice
Just two this week. I’ll translate them for you.
“I’m tired of being an expert in the papal conclave / Now I’m an expert in power outages”
“How was the history exam?” / “It was about the historical events from 2020–2025”
Say Hello
Short breath for air, before I finish the book.
How was it? Your feedback makes this great.
Who would I be at the end of the world? The cool customer secretly hoping this is the Station Eleven moment.
I went into my neighbour’s during the apagón thinking she was offering me a tea (having the blackout luxury of a gas stove!) She was, but I only got it after she served me up the most incredible lunch, all cooked from scratch and entirely unexpected (we communicated via her kids as she speaks little Spanish or English). It’s stories like that which make me feel like perhaps we could all use a dose of apagón. Then I read about people stuck on trains for 10 hours and I waver.