Playing a game in pitch darkness!

Fancy getting caught in a power failure at an apartment and someone switched off the generator for the lift. We came out of our car and saw the lights go off suddenly. Not a comforting thought to have to carry the 2 girls 10 floors up the stairs (and mommy is pregnant too!). Thinking that it would be a short blackout, we all went to the guard house to enquire further.

Nobody had any clue of what was happening. "Shucks!" At a distance I could see the flikering lights from the candles of a 'mamak' (a slang for indian muslims) shop. "Let's go for 'teh-tarik' (special brewed tea, drained from a height to oxygenate the tea to add a spectacular flavour to it)", I said. Both Clarissa and Christa was elated. Feeling a bit adventurous, I decided to get Clarissa a tender young coconut. Clarissa was thrilled having a coconut to herself. It's the type of feeling when she received her first soft toy. An hour later, the generators came on for the lifts and corridor lights. By the time we went up, Christa was already fast asleep.

"Daddy, I want air-cond!", Clarissa demanded. "Daddy, I am very hot and sweating. I want air-cond!", she reiterated. I tried as much as I could to explain to her about the blackout but nothing worked.

"Let's play a game!", I said. "You hold the torch and shine into the aquarium tank while daddy pour in the fish (newly bought at East Aqua, IKANO)". In my mind, I was thinking whether I would get to resuscitate the fish on time as they were already gasping for air.

Clarissa felt in control. She had the only torch and took charge (but the light was shining all over the living room except in the tank!). She was a gem and she helped mommy and I unpack, clean-up and even held the light while we took turns in the shower. I managed to keep the fishes in two 4 foot aquariums by giving periodical air supply via the aerator tubes. We had an old cardboard folder each to fan the girls as it was already late. Clarissa soon fell asleep at 11.30pm.

At 1.00am, the electricity supply resumed to my relief.