Once upon a time in the future (part I)

Eyes flutter open. Pitch black. A lazy drift of wind makes way through the window, but dissapears in haste. I try to retrieve what time, date and place it is. My cell phone beeps. The screen flashes a wink of 'el lumbre'. It warns- battery low. Now I know I'm in my bedroom. It's midnight. The same midnight, same place, same life. Almost a Deja Vu.

The heat is unbearable. The occasional heimlich-charity-breeze-maneuver prevents me from choking from the heat. Attempting to fall back to sleep is 'mission impossible' re-defined. Counting sheep isn't an option.(The creative portion of my brain draws up a deadly association between wool and heat). I try counting polar bears. Can't, I'm still bothered by the fur! I give up. Time for brainstorming! Read a book? ; But which? The Bangla novel I read halfway through? Any of the three other English novels I read to varying page numbers? None. It had slipped my mind that 'el lumbre'-the elusive blessing- was missing. I devise a plan B- listen to the radio on my cell phone? Curiosity gets the better of me, and I wonder if the radio stations have a power cut too. The wondrous brain has a rebuttal- even if they did have power your cell phone's battery is dry. Plan C-Make for the kitchen, and find something to snack up on with whatever light is at your disposal. Plan C in effect. As I scan through the freezer all I could interest my taste budswith  is some kebab with a cold glass of Ayran(a yogurt based beverage, popular in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and other parts of the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central Asia.)

I whisk the kebab and the yogurt out of the fridge and rehearse the steps of making the ayran:

Pour the yogurt in a medium mixing bowl
Using the electric beater, blender or whisk, beat the yogurt until it is completely smooth.
Add in the water one-half cup at a time, beating it into the yogurt after each addition
When all the water is added in, continue beating for one minute. The surface of the ayran should be a bit bubbly
Add salt to taste, beating the salt into the mixture.
Add mint to taste, beating it into the mixture to release its flavor.

Ahh..mmm. The thought bubble in my head already has me sipping and savoring every bit of the Ayran. I'm through step 1, and 2(had to go with the whisk), and then I gleefully greet everything in the freezer to take 'cold water' out tonight. After ransacking the fridge and the freezer, first patiently and then gradually more frantically, for a good few minutes, the closest thing I find is a bottle of ketchup. No problemo. I check the jug- it's dry! I check every other container for water- dry! I resort to the faucet-it's dry! With utter frustration I divert my attention to the kebabs. I poke a lit match at the stove repeatedly.Voila-nothing!  Murphy's law or Karma?

I'm crotchety. My life path number says so. But things are happening on a big scale now, so I can't give the credit to my life path number for feeling the way I'm feeling by now.  My cell phone is dead. No power, no water, no gas. No, we're not at war. We haven't been hit by missiles, or mortars, or RPG's, or anything the military might use to bring about this outcome. No, we're not reeling from any devastating calamity, or such. We haven't been hit by cyclones, or droughts, or floods, or anything nature might use to bring about this outcome.....