Where did the time go? The clocks went out. Candles are busy in all the rooms. We move from zone to zone, still sometimes reaching for the light switch. We forget even though we know, as when someone dead almost comes down the stairs before you can stop him. No, there's no one there. Neighbours are talking in the garden – we didn't know we had so many. Their voices crisscross, passing between hedges, as their cats do. Did you phone? And did they tell you what they told me? We are alone, with only people for company, and the various insects that share our houses with us and the long whiskers of web that feel the dark and the candles' new-laid light. There must be, there is a connection. The torch-beams out in the substation are jostling now, trying to find it.