Published: 2025-11-11

It was a hot summer day, too hot for the kids to play outside. People congregated under the shade of trees, waving their hand fans and drinking lemonade. Some wore shorts and tank tops, others went shirtless. As men and women dripped sweat from their foreheads, and kids in front of electric fans made their voices sound robotic, the power went out.

Fan blades stopped rotating all over New Town, and so it began, the merciless reign of the Sun.

People started going outside. They covered their foreheads with the back of their hands as they stepped onto the doorsteps and looked up and down the street.

“Is everyone else’s power out?”, “Is it only me?”, “Will it return soon?” Those were the questions that invaded the people of New Town.

There was no logical explanation for the interruption of the service during a hot summer day. No storm, tornado, or hurricane had hit the town; why interrupt the service then? People had questions, and it didn’t take long for them to voice them.

It is unclear who was the first person to think of calling the electric company, perhaps Mrs. Cárdenas, the town florist, who has been described as “quick to complain” by the neighbors. Whoever it may have been, that person was received with nothing but silence from their telephone’s speaker. Not a dead tone, but no tone at all.

The news traveled quickly, be it because many people were trying to reach someone through the phone, or because those who had tried spread the word, whatever the case, the fact remained: rotating and releasing the dial was a fruitless act; the telephones didn’t work.

Strange as it may be, perhaps the telephone company was reliant on electricity in a way that the people of New Town couldn’t understand.

People started to gravitate towards Mr. Díaz’s butchery, the same way that flies gravitated towards the sausages that hung from hooks on the wall. They arrived by themselves, or with their kids by the hand, as if pulled by an invisible force. The smell of blood and viscera reached the outside of the shop, now that the fan that directed the odor towards the back alley was turned off.

“What’s happening here?” Asked Mr. Gutiérrez as he approached the crowd.

“We’re going to listen to the radio. Mr. Díaz has one of those fancy radios that run on batteries. His son went to Mr. Núñez’s mini-market to get some.” Said one man.

“Ah, the radio!” Said Mr. Gutiérrez, “Surely they know what this is all about.”

Mr. Díaz’s teenage boy plowed through the crowd that occupied the sidewalk and part of the street in front of his father’s shop, sweat stains under his armpits, and four D batteries in his back pocket.

The crowd became lively as the boy entered the shop and headed towards the back room. Moments later, his father came to the front, holding a small portable radio, shaped like a shoe box. The crowd applauded as if he had just hit a home run with all the bases loaded.

“Quiet, everyone. Quiet. Let me turn the thing on.” Mr. Díaz said.

The crowd was happy to oblige.

Mr. Díaz removed the plastic cover in the back of the radio and inserted the four D batteries. He then covered it up and slid the on switch. Nothing but static came out of it. He carefully turned the dial to the right, trying to tune a station — any station; he then turned the dial in the opposite direction. Nothing but static came out of the radio.

The crowd waited attentively for the voice of a man selling dish soap or frozen dinners to come out of the electronic machine. Mr. Díaz scratched his head as he looked at the radio with confusion.

“Why wouldn’t it work?” Said someone.

“It must be broken. What a piece of junk!” A second man added.

“I can assure you, gentlemen, this radio is not broken. It was mere hours ago that my boy and I listened to a radio drama while packing sausages in the back of the shop.” Mr. Díaz said.

“My pops’ right. We listen to House of Monsters every day without fail on the good ol’ radio.”

The crowd's whispers became an uproar.

“No power, no telephone, and no radio? That cannot be right.”

“This must be the government’s fault!”

“We may have been invaded for all we know!”

“Next thing you know, they’re dropping bombs on all of us.”

Panic took hold of people, men became violent, women hugged their kids, some people broke down into tears. Some called for order, but the voice of reason was not to be heard that day.

Someone may have suggested it, but chances are, people’s discontent pushed them in that direction. Whatever the case, the angry mob now marched towards city hall. Some with legitimate questions, others with their heads filled with conspiracy theories and unfounded rumors.

From city hall, the crowd seemed like nothing but a speck of dust in an otherwise impeccable town, but even dust, if not tended to, will accumulate and dirty the place. The crowd in the horizon went from a few to dozens, and then hundreds in mere minutes; the two guards who stood firmly at the main gate didn’t take long to deduce where the crowd was headed.

“Tell the mayor that an angry mob is headed this way. Request orders and report back. Now!” Said one guard to the other.

The guard went into the building, carrying the message with him, but he never came back out.

Like a swarm of locusts, the mob stormed city hall, destroying everything in its path. The main gate fell, even though the guards never got to close it. The fate of the mayor is still unknown. We never knew what prompted the events of that hot summer day to happen; all we know is that the sun set down that day as it always does, and shortly after, the power returned, and the radio and telephone started working again.

THE END.