Lamplighter

Alan Ten-Hoeve

My wife took the kids out to meet some friends for a socially-distanced hike this morning. They’ve been doing that every so often since summer. This is what counts for socializing when it’s not over Zoom. After they left, I started walking around the house turning off lights, and was shaken by a sense of deja vu. It took me a moment to realize it was because I used to follow this routine every weekday morning. Before the pandemic changed everything. Before we were all at home all the time. Back then, as my wife drove the kids to school on her way to the office, I would walk around the house killing all the lights they left on, and collect their dirty laundry before going to work. I used to hate having to shut off all these lights. The bathrooms, bedrooms, living room, hallway, kitchen, even the basement. Who needs so many lights? And why couldn’t anyone remember to flick a switch when they left a room? I’d reminded them a thousand times. I was becoming an old man complaining about energy being wasted and my complaints being ignored. “I should start charging for my service,” I would say with disgust and compare myself to the lamplighters who were employed to walk around the streets snuffing out candles in the days before electricity. It’s been almost eight months since that routine abruptly ended. Eight. Long. Months. Now I would love to have that minor annoyance back. And I would never complain about shutting off lights again.

Alan ten-Hoeve lives in the woods. His writing has appeared in The Daily Drunk, 433 Magazine, (Mac)ro(Mic), and Versification. His music with The Multi-Purpose Solution can be found on Mint 400 Records. Twitter him @alantenhoeve