The Afternoon Without the Internet

Photo: Unsplash.

The internet stopped at 1:06 p.m. I knew the exact time because three devices informed me at once.

I restarted the router. It blinked red with the calm authority of something that had already rejected my proposal. The provider’s status page would not load, which felt like a design flaw.

I decided to make coffee. The smart speaker could not start its usual timer, so I used the oven clock. It was eleven minutes slow and apparently had been since the last power cut. My music was unavailable. The light bulb in the corner had forgotten that it also possessed a physical switch.

With work stalled, I opened a book. Ten pages later I reached for my phone to look up a place mentioned in the story, remembered the outage, and experienced the strange inconvenience of remaining curious.

At three, a neighbor knocked. She wanted to know if my connection was down too. We compared router colors, then sat on the stairs because neither of us had anywhere online to be. Another neighbor joined us. Somebody produced oranges.

The internet returned at 4:22. Phones chimed throughout the building. We stood up almost immediately, slightly embarrassed by how quickly the old afternoon reclaimed us.

Before going inside, the neighbor left two oranges by my door. I ate one without photographing it.