Power cut

It had been a busy day at the office. It was almost 11:30 at night when my taxi drove into my neighborhood. And immediately I realised, there was a powercut. The whole neighborhood was dark...the roads were empty. I left the taxi on the main road and started walking. I was finding it quite difficult to see where I was going, but the human body is a fantastic machine, soon I was able to see things. There was a half moon in the sky, getting covered from time to time by sparse clouds.

I reached the lake and turned left. As I walked past the lamp post with the notice "Do not dump garbage here" (which was too dark to read now) I realized how quiet the place is. There were no birds, no loud television, no car horn, not even the cry of a stray dog. And the so well known neighborhood of mine suddenly felt strange and alien. I've never seen the place like this. It was like I was in some strange and unknown country...all by myself.

I felt strange feelings rise inside me, too strange and unknown to be put into words. It was as if I was not myself any more. I was not walking on my way to home. I was suddenly Shankar, walking down the Kalahari, the numbing coldness of night dessert around me. Moonlight lighting my path. Long distance away, on the horizon I see mount Kilimanjaro. Somewhere behind me I've left the diamond cave and my friend Diego Alvarez, lying down finally, below the great Baobab, where the wind and the jungle will keep watch. Search for glory, search for fortune...at death they end.

Or maybe I was Aragorn, son of Arathorn.....Riding upon the open field of Pelennor. Anduril, the flame of the west, on my waist. The white city of Minas Tirith lies behind me. My road leads to Barad dur, passed Osgiliath and the black gate and the plain of Gorgoroth, where the great eye of Sauron never sleeps. Many a friend lies behind, many enemies. Destiny calls me forward.....yet return I shall, Arwen awaits me.
"From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king."

Or perhaps I was Ronald Deschain....the last Gunslinger of the world. The two revolvers with heavy ivory handles rest peacefully in my belt. Waiting to get unleashed, waiting to kill. The dark tower of my dreams, the very core of existence of the worlds, lies somewhere across the vast land of the decaying midworld. My path leads me there forever. Alone I travel. At the dark tower, the nexus of the universe, shall I find my salvation, the answer to every question. The whole world in a single rose.

My reverie broke as I came to my home. At the same moment, the power came back, flooding the world with light and the strange world vanished. Lost but not gone. It'll stay hidden under the cover of light. And every once in a while, when I least expect it, it'll come out and surround me. It'll take me out of this world of materials and misery and bring me once again to the jungles of Africa, to the forests of Lothlorien, to the rosefield under the dark tower. Once again I'll drop the pen and pick up the sword. The known world would vanish and will be replaced by the magical world of imagination.