Downtime

“Do you not see that maybe I don’t have the time for this bullshit or for you?” yelled Yuvan as he slammed the door shut on his way out. Ira stood by the counter, frozen. She did not remember a time when he had lost his cool at her. I should probably follow him out, she thought. Her legs didn’t seem to cooperate, almost as if they were glued to the floor. Her gaze followed the rapidly retreating figure of his car through the window. She waited for a sign that the car was pulling back in the driveway, but it never came. Trying to shake off the unpleasant morning, she took her now cold coffee and gulped it down.

“Ira?”, called her boss. Ira seemed to be in a staring contest with her phone, willing it to light up with a message from Yuvan. Surely he felt just as bad about this morning as her? “Ira?”, called her boss once again, ending the contest. She stood up abruptly, apologized for being distracted and left the meeting. Later that day, she wrapped up whatever little work she had managed to do and headed down the elevator. She waited at the usual spot, looking for the familiar white Mercedes to pull up in front of her. She hoped to finally have a heart-to-heart with Yuvan and end the hostility at home. It had been days since they even smiled at each other. Half an hour later, there was still no sign of the car. She dialed his number and listened to the ring. No answer. Before she could call him a second time, her phone chimed. “Ever heard of Uber?” it said. Taken aback, she read it again to be certain her eyes weren’t betraying her. She then navigated to the Uber app. “Please check your internet connection”, it said. Not believing her luck, she decided a long walk home might help.

An hour later, she was at the front door. Seeing the car parked out front, she knocked on the door. A few minutes later, the door opened to reveal Yuvan, still in his work clothes. Before she could say a thing, he walked off into the room. A “Hey, what took you so long?” would have been nice. She sat on the couch, exhausted.

Yuvan’s phone rang next to her, sporting a call from Jeev–his colleague and best friend. “Yuvan?”, she called out to him. When he didn’t respond, she picked up the phone and answered. “Hey Jeev, he’s not around. I’ll get him to call you back”, she said and was ready to hang up.

“Ira? Wait! So he’s home?” asked Jeev, relieved.

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t he be?”
“Well, he left the office after lunch for a site visit. It’s a new location and he got lost so he called me looking for help.”

“Umm.. Why wouldn’t he just navigate back home?”

“That’s the thing, he couldn’t access Maps because of the incident.”

“Incident? What incident?”
“Wait, you don’t know? The Internet is down!”

“What do you mean, down where?”
“Everywhere!”

She was now laughing, “You’re kidding right? How can the Internet be down?” she was saying as Yuvan approached her. “It sure is.”, he said and took the phone from her. “Jeev, yes, all good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”, he said and hung up. As he walked away, a frustrated Ira called after him, “Yuvan, I can’t take this anymore! Can you be in the same room as me for more than five seconds, please? And now the Internet is just ‘down’? What is that all about?”. Yuvan stopped to say, “I need some time, Ira.”, and left the room.

It was time for dinner when Ira got off the phone with Jeev. “The cable networks have a bunch of different theories, but the bottom line is that no one’s got a clue about what really happened.”, he had said. She was still unable to wrap her head around the situation. She looked around to see if Yuvan was going to turn up for dinner, and headed to the bedroom when she realized that he wasn’t. She was barely hungry anyway. She half-expected Yuvan to be on the bed with his laptop when she entered. Instead, he was sitting out in the balcony. Deciding against going out, she got into bed and willed herself to fall asleep.

He saw the first rays of dawn as he sat pondering by himself. When was the last time he had watched the sunrise from here? Glancing at his phone for the first time through the night, he noticed how refreshing it was to not hear it chime every few minutes. He thought again about what he had said to her. “I don’t have time for this bullshit or for you.” Really? When had he failed to make time for the woman he claimed to be the love of his life? Where did all his time go? Something occurred to him suddenly and he unlocked the phone. He sighed sadly as he read the screen, “6 hours 12 minutes” the Screen Time showed. So that’s where it all went. His phone then chimed with a text message.

“In light of the Internet shutdown, we are faced with unprecedented circumstances. We request employees to remain at home until further notice. Rest assured, we are doing our best to resume our routine operations at the earliest.”

As her alarm rang, Ira woke to find Yuvan asleep next to her. She checked her phone and found one message from work. “What a great time for a day off with Mr. Grumpy here!” she sighed to herself. An hour later, she found herself having a quiet breakfast. Faint footsteps echoed behind her as Yuvan walked to the refrigerator. He pulled out some milk and joined her at the table. “Day off?” he asked. He only got a nod in response. They then sat in silence for five minutes. It was odd to sit at the table with no phones or laptops around. He pulled out his phone, tapped mindlessly and put it down, sighing. “I’m sorry…” he said finally. She looked at him, surprised. “I’ve been thinking about what I said to you last morning. It was uncalled for. I have been really busy with the promotion but that’s no excuse. I said I don’t have any time for you but…” he paused as he reached out for her hand. Holding it with both of his, he continued “Do you believe in signs?”. Before she could respond, he said “I believe the Internet shut down so I could be in this moment with you. So I could fix us.”. She chuckled, “You believe the entire world has gone upside down in no time just for us?”. He nodded and gave her a wink, “You’ll see!”.

“So much for our first task of the day. Our TV runs on Netflix! How are we going to watch anything on it?” she said. He looked at her for a second, then he headed for the door. “Give me half an hour!”, he said and left. Stopping outside the convenience store, he headed in and looked for the rack of magazines. “Where are all the…”

 “Newspapers?”, the store assistant finished for him.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“We’ve had about every customer leaving the store with those. Sorry, we’re all out.”

“All out? How’s that possible?”
“Beats me, this is the first I’ve seen it happen. The shutdown might just be pushing us towards our roots.”, he said simply.

An hour later, he entered and triumphantly laid a newspaper on the table. “This is what took you so long?”, she rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t believe the demand for it.”, he said. Handing her her favorite Latte from Starbucks, he sat down. Upon seeing her questioning expression, “Oh I just walked in because I was amused that a full Starbucks had no laptops blocking the faces in the crowd. Every person in there was engaged in a conversation. Imagine that!” he explained. “Of course, there’s also the fact that you get cranky without your morning coffee.”, he smiled sheepishly. Before she could react, he pulled her to her feet and said, “Close your eyes and don’t move. I’ll be back.”

She heard the shuffling of his feet around the house. The impatience was growing within her, “Have you gone in search of the damn newspaper again?” she inquired. A few seconds later, she heard the soft sound of a piano melody. It grew progressively louder as Yuvan walked to her. He set something bulky on the table and stood in front of her. He took the Latte off her hand, placed his hand there instead, and guided her to the music. A hint of a smile crept about her lips. They danced to the familiar music for the better part of an hour. “Is this the record I sent you for our first anniversary? I didn’t know you still had it, let alone having heard it.”, she said as she rested her head on his chest. “Heard it? There was a time when I didn’t go a day without listening to it. The record always made me feel like I was holding you close. Never had I imagined then that I would be able to do this with you one day.”, he pulled her closer and ran his fingers through her hair as the music slowly faded out. The dancing continued nonetheless.

“It’s been quite a day.”, she said to him as they looked up at the sky. They had resigned themselves to the grass after a competitive evening of football. Having missed the live stream of the game, they had decided to settle the rivalry on the pitch. It had been declared a draw, but they had ended it in fear of either of them ripping the other’s jersey apart. “I told you, didn’t I?”, he said and turned to give her a kiss on the forehead. The sky slowly changed colors and eventually turned pitch black. The stars were now shining on two figures with their hands entwined, lying down in tranquility. “Maybe we should go get some dinner.”, she suggested.

Once inside, they headed to the kitchen. Almost simultaneously, their phones buzzed incessantly from the counter. Yuvan picked up his phone to inspect it. “Look at that, I guess it’s back on!”, he said happily. She let out a silent groan as he continued to scan the phone. The detox hadn’t lasted very long after all. Turning away from him, she wiped off a stray tear that had escaped her eye. When she turned back toward him, he was on his knee, holding the record from earlier.

“What…”, she managed to say.

“When I asked you to marry me, I made a set of promises I did not keep. So here I am, on my knees again to offer you this beautiful record and all that it represents. If you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of our time together trying to be the man who deserves that record. Will you forgive me, Ira?”

“Saying no would ruin that killer line. But if it means getting that record back, yes!”

“I’ll take what I can get”, he said and stood up to wrap his arms around her.

“Why this change in heart though?”, she was curious.

“The shutdown might just be pushing us towards our roots.”, he said simply.