“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” George Orwell
I am not a writer. I am not a photographer or a manager. I am not good in the way people assume. At heart I am a pragmatist. I use language the same way I use the tools in the shop. Simple when it needs to be. Precise when that helps. A bit of colour when the moment earns it. Nothing more.
With the right tools I can get through most things. It has been a long time since I felt helpless. If something fails, I fix it. If it breaks, I work around it. If there is a gap, I fill it. Living like that keeps the days steady, but it also makes them narrow. You start believing everything depends on your ability to keep going. You forget how thin that belief really is.
Maybe that is why that morning unsettled me. It was not dramatic. No rush. No volunteers calling my name from two directions. I unlocked the door expecting the usual small troubles. The stiff frame. The rail that leans forward like it is tired. Something that needs wiping. Instead I stepped into a silence that felt wrong. The air had a coldness that sank straight into my sleeves. My breath rose faintly. No lights. No hum. The shop was not waking up. It just sat there, holding its breath.
There was nothing I could do.
No trick.
No workaround.
Just a dead shop and me standing in the middle of it with a bunch of keys that suddenly meant very little. The emergency exit sign glowed in the corner like it was the only thing still awake.
And then the part I do not usually say. I had no one I would call, even if I wanted to. I get on with everyone, but no one is close. Most days that suits me. I like the quiet. But standing there with a building that would not respond, the distance felt heavier than it should. The clothes on the rails looked like shapes instead of colours. It would have been nice to have someone laugh at it with me. Someone to say, well this is a bit rubbish. Instead it was just me and the dark, both of us waiting for the other to move first.
National Grid said it would be a few hours. Nothing unusual. Just another fault. So I sat in the cold shop, the smell of fabric settling deeper without the heaters, and watched people walk past the window. Nobody looked in. From outside the place looked asleep. Their footsteps sounded clearer than they should. A bus sighed at the lights. Even the air felt like it had stepped back.
Powerlessness is strange.
It does not shout.
It sits beside you and waits.
I rang a few volunteers to tell them not to come in. One arrived before I reached them, cheerful and ready for the day, and I had to send them home. They took it well, but the quiet that followed them out the door stayed far longer than they did.
Not everything can be fixed.
Some things wait you out.
So I stayed. There was nothing else to do. The cold deepened. The small truths you usually outrun settled in with me. My whole way of working relies on movement. Small tasks. Small corrections. Without them I was not sure what to do with the space that opened up. You notice the gaps more clearly. The habits you lean on. The thoughts you avoid. Even the rails seemed heavier, as if the room had stopped pretending on my behalf.
The power did not return. Hours passed. A few customers tried the door, read the sign, and gave me the polite little smile people use when something inconvenient is nobody’s fault. I apologised out of habit. Eventually I rang the office, explained the situation, and asked if I could lock up. My fingers felt slow on the metal handle. It was like ending a day that had not begun.
Later, after the repair was confirmed, I came back. The lights stayed dead. The till stayed blank. The same stillness waited for me. I flicked the switch twice, as if the second attempt might convince something. That moment stayed with me more than it should have. The sense that life does not always resume just because someone says it has. Sometimes it waits. Sometimes it drifts. Sometimes it returns in its own time.
The next morning everything worked as though nothing had happened. The heaters pushed out their tired warmth. The radio mumbled something cheerful. Volunteers arrived. Customers drifted in. The rhythm returned without hesitation, and the world carried on as if the day before had been a missing page.
There was no message waiting.
No revelation.
Just the quiet reminder that not everything responds to effort. Some days stop. Some restart. Some do not. You turn up for all of them. That is enough.
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus
Most days, that is as close as I get.
Notes
Header Photo by Ulla Shinami on Unsplash