2492. A disappointing day © Bruce Goodman 28 July 2022

Griselda stood at her kitchen window and watched. It was eight in the morning and workers had arrived with their trucks and cranes to replace the old power pole that fed electricity to her house. The electricity was cut but it was a winter’s day and the log burner was boiling water for coffee and for a soup for lunch. Ten o’clock came. It was time for a coffee. Two hours after coffee it was lunch time. Luckily Griselda watched from her kitchen window so she could prepare something to eat without leaving the scene. Three o’clock came. It was time for yet another coffee. She could hardly drag herself away from the scene even for a quick visit to the bathroom. Come five o’clock and it began to get dark. Suddenly the electricity came back on. The workers packed up and left. It was the most uneventful nine hours Griselda had spent in ages. It was a great disappointment. She had waited, camera in hand, all this time, and there was no accident; no man plummeting to the ground from a high cherry-picker; no crane collapsing and squashing the cab of a vehicle. The news media would’ve paid extravagantly for such snap shots. Griselda had been transfixed for hours and all for nothing. Contact Author Back to Index Next Story Previous Story