UPDATE – THIS PIECE HAS BEEN SOLD
This is part one in a series of four inspired by Nicolas Lancret’s ‘The Four Ages of Man.’ This was a popular renaissance theme in painting where a series of works were produced to reflect childhood, adolescence, maturity, and old age. The overarching theme in all these pieces is traditionally a love that outwits & perplexes time. I chose to also consider themes of self-worth, rejection, humanity and architecture, as well as paralleling childhood with The Golden Age in Ovid’s metamorphoses.
“MAMA, THE POWERS GONE.” Yelped my little brother.
Hannah Montana had just twirled into a black nothingness as the tv switched off, alongside all the lights in the house, including those in the fridge.
The power outages had become more and more frequent in the summer months. Something about the Chinese doing construction, something about some war, some environmental disaster, maybe? Us kids couldn’t tell for sure. I can’t remember for sure.
We couldn’t use the generator too often, it was expensive. Its home was a metal clunky house in the front garden, it spewed thick black smoke and thundered when it ran, almost as if to let everyone know it knew how important it was in our lives. Its ability to literally generate electric power.
“Four in a row?” I challenged my older brother.
This was the easy part, the daylight hours of power outage. Piling into my older brothers room, where the window faced the sun, we could squeeze out the most of its rays. We would hustle the board games out of their beaten faded cardboard boxes. Crazy eights, snap, monopoly, risk, and parcheesi filled out the time.
Sometimes we would get a bit fancier with our choice of daylight entertainment; Setting up sibling war games, mini car cities or the candy stock exchange.
The sun would eventually fade though, as we twiddled our tiny thumbs waiting for the lights to come back on.
“Mama, can we eat in the TV room?”
She would usually oblige if there was a nighttime power outage. So our unit would shift gears, and Mama would take out the flashlights that we had bought from overseas, giving us one each (if we were lucky enough to have them charged).
She would put a big pot of water to boil on the gas stove top. Once it had boiled, she poured it carefully into a large bucket. The water was divvied between us as we each had our turn in the tub, making sure to splash each essential body part at least once.
Lord knows how the cooking was done with no light, but it was my understanding that food was usually prepared in the mornings, when a power outage was least likely, so it could be ready to heat on the stovetop for dinner.
“Someone farted.” My older brother accused, in the darkness, knowing full well that it was he who had committed the act. And this was going to be the subject of conversation for the next twenty minutes.
Mama would sit there, watchful over our mindless squabbling, pinching, annoying, and development. She would control the energy, making sure nothing got out of hand, giving us a shout if it was necessary, cautioning that Papa would be home soon. Even without lights, without heating, without hot water, everything was okay if Mama was controlling the energy. This could go on for hours.
“Powers back! Power!” My little brother screamed with delight.
In an unearthly flash, pop and tickle, light had been restored to our home. We hugged each other, hopping, cheering, hoping that it wouldn’t go off again in the next 5 minutes (which had definitely happened far too often in the past).
