It was the Babylon Day party that started it all. If I hadn’t gone to Harry’s party marking five long, hard years since the events of Babylon Day, when the blackout started, I wouldn’t be writing this letter. But …

But it was, after all, the fifth anniversary of the start of the blackout, which everyone called Babylon Day. The theme of the party was, of course, Babylon V. Everyone came as their favorite alien ambassador. How could I resist?

Things were finally settling down to the new normal. The electrical power industry had gotten used to the decentralized paradigm. The superconductor revolution had helped make local power grids possible. That, and solar power, wind power, people power, … well. You know.

So, I thought the fifth anniversary party would be more upbeat! Not so much whining and bemoaning the good old days before Babylon Day. More optimism and looking forward to a bright future. It might have been that way, too, if the Greenies hadn’t been there.

Rachel and her boyfriend Cliff started it. They’d brought their phones with them, and they kept looking at the screens, like they expected a miracle to happen. Then, Cliff was rude enough to ask if he could charge his phone from the local grid. That pissed Harry off; it was his grid, his party. He told Cliff that if he wanted to pedal the bike long enough to top up the battery, then sure, he could charge his stupid phone; otherwise, get the hell out. Cliff had had too much of the free beer to pedal for long, so he and Rachel slunk off to a couch on the other side of the room.

“Damn Greenies,” muttered Harry. I tended to agree with him, but as usual I was minding my own business.

April, who had come with Rachel and Cliff, and who was not drinking the free beer, spoke up. “Have you ever been to a church service?” She pulled out her phone—an antiquated Samsung Galaxy—turned it on, frowned at the lack of service, turned it off again. Really, what had she expected, a miracle?

“Hell no,” Harry replied. “That damned green comet had nothing at all to do with the blackout. It was the Earth’s poles reversing that started it all. Electricity behaves totally different in a reversed magnetic field”

“No, no,” Eric chipped in his two cents’ worth. He was drinking the free beer and eating too many of the free tacos. “No, it was the Earth’s core that stopped spinning that caused the radio frequencies to shut down. Everything else was just a chain reaction.”

“Core does that every seventy years,” protested Harry. “That had nothing to do with why all the radio frequency stuff stopped working!”

Finally, I spoke up. “Neither of those events explains why all the high-volume power lines caught fire. We simply don’t know why we can’t transmit electricity at high currents across long distances anymore.”

Everyone shrugged. No one knew. No one knew why radio frequency traffic was limited to less than a kilometer. No one knew why electricity worked when generated locally, at low levels, but caused large power stations to explode. Babylon Day was history, and the blackout was just status quo now.

“The green comet appeared in our skies,” said April, “as a warning that we had transgressed against God’s will. It will reappear when we have learned to use God’s Essence with reverence.” Harry rolled his eyes. “You would understand if you came to one of our meetings,” April went on, ignoring him. “I’ve seen miracles happen. Sometimes, we get two, even three bars of service, just for a few seconds.”

“Right before the church’s WIFI router blows up,” I said, cynically. “Besides, that comet isn’t due back in the inner solar system for fifty thousand years! Are you saying humanity has to wait that long before we get the Internet back, or before we can broadcast radio around the world like we used to?”

After that, the conversation became predictable. Sentimental blah blah about how it had been so great back in the day, when we could use our mobile phones. Reminiscences about listening to the radio in our cars … Wistful memories of satellite or cable TV, GPS, FaceBook, Twitter, Email, texting … 

“Sometimes we can text, for a little while,” called Rachel, from the couch across the room. “Email, too. Just locally, on the church’s intranet, before …” She looked down at her feet.

“Before it blows up!” I said again. “Just like all the long-distance lines did, just like the power plants did, the radio stations, … No one knows why!”

From there, talk segued into who had lost people on Babylon Day. Because everyone had. Millions had died, before things started to come under control. Everybody knew somebody. 

“We remember them all, too, at our services,” Rachel chimed in. “God remembers all those He took when the blackout fell. He will set his covenant in the skies when we are worthy of the gift of His Essence.”

“Oh, this is crap!” Harry threw his empty Solo cup into the trash with a disgusted motion. “Things are better now! We generate electricity at low levels, locally! We’ve got superconducting batteries now! You can still use your computers, just … not for very long at once, and without the Internet, but … who cares!? If anything, God did us a favor by making high-volume electricity generation and radio impossible!”

By that time, most of the free beer and all the free tacos were gone, and the whining and nostalgia was starting to make me vaguely nauseous. It was early morning, and the sun was coming up.Improvements or not, new normal or not, the nights were still darker than before. The colors of the dawn were bright pink and purple streaks across the sky. Their cheeriness stood in stark contrast to the sour mood of the party. So much for optimism.

April was fiddling with her dead cell phone. “Come with us,” she coaxed. “If you only felt the closeness to God that we enjoy …”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t even own a phone anymore,” he said. “I’m happy with my old desktop computer for word processing and stuff. The Internet and all that is gone forever, and I’m okay with that.” He walked to the door. “Party’s over, folks. Happy Babylon Day.” He held the door open in a “Here’s your hat, where’s your hurry,” gesture. 

I don’t know what made me go get my iPhone. I got all the way home, three blocks away through still-dark streets. It was probably an old habit that made me reach in the drawer of the hall table and pull out the phone. It was dead, of course. Maybe I still craved the comfort we all used to get from the LED screens, the cheery little chimes, the music and ring tones and … Whatever obscure impulse that moved me, I slipped it into my pocket and walked out the door.

The closest Church of the Green Comet was only a few more blocks down the street. April smiled at me as I walked in. The place looked like nothing so much as a meeting space for a 12-step program. It was lit by Christmas tree lights. Music played from a boom box. Not surprisingly on the morning after a Babylon Day anniversary, it was filling up pretty quickly. People were plugging in their old phones, and I had to hurry to grab a USB port before they were all taken.

Pretty soon, a guy in a Radio Head T-shirt got up on the stage at the front of the room. Was it getting warm in here already, or was that just my imagination? Was that a tang of ozone, the acrid smell of singing insulation?

“Thank you all for coming today!” He bowed his head. “We ask the Lord to be present, and allow his Essence to flow through us and our unworthy instruments.” Beeps and start-up tones cascaded through the room like a tumble of coins. “Would anyone like to testify?”

“I had two bars!” Cried a fervent voice from somewhere in the back of the room. “Two bars for three seconds!”

“Amen, brother!” Came the response from all around the room. “Let connectivity return to us all.”

A woman stood up. “I got spam Email from the Prince of Nigeria!” She cried. “Just like in the days of connectivity!”

The chorus of “Amen,” was a little shakier this time. I had a hard time keeping the smile off my face. If it hadn’t been so pathetic, it would have been hilarious. As it was …

There were a few others who testified. One guy claimed his GPS worked and saved him when he was lost. Lots of people claimed to have briefly gotten a few bars of cell coverage. All of the testimonials rang with a jagged edge of need and desperation.

After a while, the preacher raised his hands and brought the testimonials to an end. “And now, brothers and sisters,” he intoned, “Let us bask briefly in God’s holy Essence, which He has withdrawn from us, yea, until the green comet returns to signify His forgiveness!” He gestured to the workstation beside him. He pressed a button, and winking LED lights glowed to life. “The usual password, children, 1234. Hurry and connect, while God’s grace visits us.”

Frantic screen-tapping rustled around the room. I had 30% charge on my iPhone, and wasted no time connecting to the local fragment of the net that was briefly conjured to life. A soft, jubilant “Ahhh,” swirled through the room. People began texting one another, sending Emails to the person next to them or across the room. Someone FaceTimed me; I smiled at April’s image on the tiny screen.

Too soon came the pop and sizzle of overheating circuits. The stench of ozone I had been expecting finally arrived. The WIFI router exploded, and the minister yelped and threw up his hands to protect his eyes from fragments of hot plastic. Even so, I saw blood on his cheek.

A collective wail of grief and loss came from us all as whatever was causing the blackout proved too much for even this paltry use of radio frequencies. I hastily put down my iPhone, which was growing too hot to hold. I was surprised to find tears in my eyes.

The minister dabbed at his cheek. He had a beatific smile on his face. He held up a stopwatch. “Four minutes, thirty eight seconds!” He cried. “That’s a new record!” His face fell. “Once again, God has withdrawn His grace from us,” he said regretfully. “We are reminded of what has been forbidden us! Just as the Tower of Babel was struck down, so has the use of the airwaves been denied to us! In our arrogance, we used electricity to sin egregiously! Now, by the sweat of our bodies do we make the power we need, and no more than we need. Until the Green Comet returns,” he folded his hands in prayer. Silence fell upon the churchgoers, as they bowed their heads.

The collection plate came around, but I ignored it. All the useless sentimentality and silliness had left me seething. My stomach felt full of bile.

I didn’t offer to stay and charge up the church’s batteries, even though I’d selfishly used their power. I didn’t contribute money or food or anything. I didn’t pray, or thank the minister. I just stood up, unplugged my phone and walked out. When I got outside, I tossed my useless iPhone into the gutter and walked home. 

When I got there, I charged up my own batteries with an hour of brisk pedaling, until I was sure I’d have enough electricity for the day. I tried to call my mother on the land-line, but as usual the static was too loud for us to hear each other. I tended my garden and harvested a few crops for the local food bank.

The restlessness wouldn’t leave me. I paced and did busy-work, cooked my lunch on the small gas ring … Nothing made me feel better. I didn’t know whether things were better now, or whether they’d been better back when we had radio and the Internet and all that crap. I felt caught between two colliding worlds.

This is why I am resigning my teaching position with the Physics Department. No one can explain why the blackout happened; why it is still happening. Millions died, and maybe millions more will die. Physics can’t explain it, and the Greenies can’t explain it, and I can’t keep teaching Physics to kids who are growing up in a world where science has failed. Babylon Day just happened. The blackout is here to stay. It’s time we live in the present, instead of the past.