When I Tried to Kill the Dark

"What the hell? Why they cut it now, there are still two hours to go, the electricity is supposed to be cut at 12" I yelled angrily. I am sure that many Gazans had the same reaction when they cut the electricity before its scheduled time. Well, if you're asking about who the hell are "they". I can barely give you a clear answer, as me myself do not even know!  Is it Fatah? Is it Hamas? Is it Israel? Is it Egypt? Or all of them together?  I do not know.

The electricity crisis is not something new to the Palestinians in Gaza, It has been hitting the Gaza Strip since 2006. However, we managed to adjust ourselves to it as it was just cutting off for 8 hours a day. The current electricity crisis is a literally a crisis, now we have only six hours of electricity a day. We have never felt such depression and misery because of the electricity just like how we feel these days. 

Okay, back when the electricity was cut at 10 pm rather than 12 am. I adjusted myself to that day's electricity schedule. Our area was supposed to have electricity from 6 pm to 12 am, but they "cheated" and deprived us of two full hours of electricity. I felt so angry, but I decided to "try killing the dark."

We couldn't turn the generator on because we didn't have fuel. Fuel is getting more and more expensive and no one can afford buying it every day. So my sisters and I decided to watch a movie. My sister's laptop had 93% battery so we used it to watch the movie. We watched "The Shawshank Redemption" We were following every second of the movie impatiently to know what the end would be.  We loved the movie and it made us forget about the electricity. We imagined ourselves as we were in a cinema as the cinema requires no lights.

Unfortunately for us, the battery died 30 minutes before the end. My sister ran to bring my laptop so we can watch the rest of the movie. My laptop had almost 50% battery and it lasted just for 20 minutes (my laptop's battery is somehow useless, I know) both laptop batteries died and we couldn't watch the rest of the movie… We watched it the other day.

Now as our laptops had failed us.  I decided to do something else and not to surrender to the dark. I decided to complete reading "Fast Times in Palestine". PS: (you should read that book, it's amazing and informative.)

Everything that day didn't stop failing me. I had a candle left so I used it to read and kill the time but the candle unluckily died. It was the last candle we had.

It's turning to a boring, non-stopping story, I know. Anyway, that how it went and how it goes every day in Gaza.  After I ran out of candles, I decided to use my phone flash. I turned it on and start reading, forgetting about the dark, and the roaring noise of the generators around.  My phone battery lasted for almost 40 minutes then it died. IT DIED! And now nothing left. No candles, no laptop battery, no phone battery, no generator. I had no choice now but to surrender and force myself into my bed.  

I went under my covers. I was not sleepy at all, but there was nothing I could do. All my sisters went to sleep already, and it was just me awake. I kept staring at the ceiling till I finally fell asleep….


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