Black. Suddenly. Darkness everywhere. You find yourself plunged into a world of total darkness. Total absence of light. It's almost as if a heavy wool blanket was dropped upon the world. You feel it. Suffocating your common sense. Dragging you into a spiraling vortex of total fear. Its scratchy fibers irritate your memory and bring back glimpses of your worst nightmares.

You stare into the seemingly endless black void in front of you, but yet you see nothing. It's darker than the darkest night - almost darker than the color black itself. Almost as dark as the Grim Reaper's cape...assuming there is a Grim Reaper, and that he does indeed wear a cape. Of course that is just a cliched stereotype, you know that. The Grim Reaper might really wear a purple polka dotted clown suit, but somehow that isn't so dramatic when you think about it.

Panic starts to overcome you...well, another wave of panic hits you after the initial one has done its damage. You feel it clawing at the insides of your stomach like some kind of savage beast ripping flesh from its prey. Your heart pounds in your chest, and the cold silence rings in your ears. The clawing pangs in your stomach transform into a sensation of undulating nausea when you start to think about what just happened. Paranoia descends upon you, like some kind of flying saucer over an unsuspecting soon-to-be-abductee who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. You start jumping to conclusions and asking yourself "what if?" questions. You assume it's safe to just sit there and ponder your predicament. So much for assumptions.

The first explosion knocks you out of your chair. Your arms flail wildly in the air as you fall into what seems like a black hole. You can't hear your own scream over the deafening sound of the explosions. It sounds like a million jets just took off from your neighbor's yard....or perhaps a million bombs dropping from the sky. You hit the floor hard. At least there is a floor underneath you. The feeling of being trapped in a dark vortex of perpetual night is just your imagination having a field day and not a reality. You feel a stinging pain on your left knee as you lie in the floor gasping for breath. It feels like you will never catch your breath. The fall must have knocked your breath out....or was it some kind of horrible gas? You force yourself to concentrate on catching your breath and not thinking.

After a few minutes - or maybe it was hours? - you slowly try get up. Maybe it was just a dream....maybe you were sleepwalking and tripped over something and you really imagined all this....but it's still dark. Wait. Duh. Of course it's dark - it's the middle of the night. You're letting your imagination (which has been exposed to over 30 years of sci-fi TV shows and movies) get away with you. When you turn on the light, everything will be just fine....

Except when you find the light switch, it won't turn on. You flip the switch a couple times but nothing happens. You've completed your noble quest for the light switch - tripping over half your living room furniture during your long odyssey - for nothing. Frustration is the first emotion you feel, and then a new wave of panic and paranoia.

Then you realize that you shouldn't panic. Well, not yet anyway. They said that there might be some minor power outages....nothing serious, of course. But somehow that doesn't seem to satisfy you. What if they were wrong.......what if... DON'T THINK!!! You try to shove thoughts like these out of your mind, but yet the memory remains....

You close your eyes tightly and force yourself to concentrate. It feels like there are spider webs in your brain....and dozens of terrified spiders scurrying around madly in the spider webs. Your paranoia finally subsides....well, sort of. It's still there lurking somewhere in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind.

You wish you had a flashlight - or a light of any kind for that matter. The darkness is starting to get to you. You find yourself imagining that you are surrounded by horrible monsters and terrifying demons. They are all around you, silently mocking you, preparing to attack.... You start to wish that you hadn't watched that horror movie last weekend.

You remember you left your flashlight on the stove, just in case. Even though everyone said that nothing was going to happen, you weren't quite sure of that. Your suspicion was right, unfortunately. You thought you were just being paranoid....but you weren't being paranoid enough. You knew about The Bug since last year, but you never did anything. While others stockpiled food and supplies, you just sat there and sent degrading remarks about the so-called "crazy" survivalists to your buddies. You feel like kicking yourself for your foolish desire to be like everyone else.

After fumbling around in the dark, you finally find the flashlight. It wasn't in the same area of the stove that you had left it in. The blast must have caused it to fall over and roll around. You turn it on and feel a little bit safer...just a little bit, though. You notice that there are a lot of overturned items on counters and broken dishes on the floor. The blast shook things up pretty well, but it didn't cause any major damage.

You stand there motionless, your flashlight's beam illuminating a broken glass. The light reflects off the iridescent shivers, and when you squint your eyes, they look like diamonds glittering in the sunlight... You let out a sigh. What are those know-it-all skeptics doing now? The people who knew that NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, would happen when the clock struck January 1, 2000? The ones who laughed at those who stocked up food and supplies - the ones who had worried about tomorrow rather than partying (or, rather, cybering) it up today - the ones that had actually been right all along?

And what about those computer programmers? Where are they now? Are they trying to sneak out of the country before hordes of angry people attack them for the mess they created? The Bug is their baby, conceived in an act of penny pinching tightwaddedness. All this - the current power outage and quite possibly the end of the technological world as you know it - would have been avoided if the programmers had used 4 digits for a date instead of 2!

How about the ones who knew it all, were always right, and had all the answers? How can they answer this? The darkness and the explosions? This fear that consumes your common sense and the paranoia that runs through your veins like the thrill of victory to an athlete who's just won the gold? Is this just a power outage, or something else? You stand there and imagine the worst as your flashlight's beam makes interesting patterns as it illuminates the broken glass.

You start to feel a bit cold. You wish you could turn on the electric heater, but you know you can't. Screw technology anyway. You might just have to start concentrating on survival and providing for yourself and stop depending on the Gods of Supermarkets and Computers. Both are manmade, and nothing manmade ever make lasts forever. You wonder where you can get food when the Christmas leftovers in the fridge and what's in your cabinets are eaten or spoil. Will you spend the remaining winter months cold and hungry? Will you have to scavage for food? What if other equally unprepared people try to steal your food? You find yourself making your New Year's resolution - to raise a garden this summer. That is if you live to see the summer. You shudder at the thoughts running through your mind.

You start to feel tired. It's been one heck of a day....not a very happy New Years Day. Instead of partying it up with your friends, you are in your house surrounded by darkness. The new Millennium (Of course, you know that the year 2000 is not really the Millennium, but calling it that sounds a lot more dramatic than "The Last Year of the 20th Century.") doesn't appear to look very bright. Oh well. No use standing around mourning for electric light and bashing computer programmers, technology, and the world in general. Your flashlight flickers, and you worry that the batteries might die on you. You quickly find some candles and light them. They don't provide very much light, but at least it's something.

You walk into the living room and plop down in your favorite easy chair. You find yourself relaxing, despite yourself. Your eyes drift over to the candle on the coffee table that's in front of you. It's one of those scented candles. You stare into the softly flickering flame and the light scent of roses and spices drifts over to your nose. You sigh.

How long will the power be out? Hours...days...weeks? Is this just a temporary thing that will be fixed soon? What were those explosions that you heard? Airplanes crashing? Bombs? Factories exploding? What if a nuclear plant melted down? Sure, everyone said that if the power went off, the nuclear plants would just shut down and not meltdown, but what if they were wrong? Are you being exposed to hazardous radiation right now? Is this the beginning of the end as the tabloids and crackpots predicted? You ask yourself these questions out loud, just to break the silence that rings in your ears. So many questions and horrible images buzz around your head. Too bad the only answer you get is the popping noise the candle flame makes every once in a while.

Is this truly the end of the world as you know it? Only the morning will tell.