SAFETY PIN

Charles lived alone in an almost isolated house. When he woke up in the middle of the night with her heart in turmoil from a nightmare _____he was dreaming that monstrous-looking dogs were chasing him, they reached him and grabbed him by the waist ( belt) of his trousers. He, trying to escape those ugly and bad beasts, fell into a deep pit, but those terrible dogs didn’t let him go, they were on him, their fangs stuck into his meat___ the first bad surprise was that there was no light. Groping around he looked for the battery lamp and tried to call for help, but the phone didn’t work. Using the remaining battery power of his computer he tried to connect to the Internet, but there was no connection. So he headed for the nearest suburban block of flats where everyone had no electricity, no telephone, and no internet. What was happening? It was necessary to seek help as soon as possible and to get information.

Some people felt bad but it was impossible to call an ambulance. They arranged to take the sick people to the hospital by car, risking an accident at any step. There were no street lamps, there were no traffic lights. And the frightened people had poured into the streets.

Then, when they arrived at the hospital, the most urgent assistance was impossible due to the lack of electricity. The whole city was in a panic. There were those who had lit fires in the square and in the streets, risking the blaze of fires when not even the firefighters could have intervened.

Meanwhile, motorists came from other cities which were also completely blacked out.

From loudspeakers, it was shouted that the whole country was in blackout, including the capital where there were fears of a coup d’état or an invasion of neighboring people. They also shouted that there was a danger of one or more atomic bombs being dropped.

The population armed themselves, shot in the streets, killing their fellow citizens mistaken for enemies.  All people seemed crazy. Oh, but that night would end, the sun would rise and shine again. Instead, the hours went by and the sun didn’t rise. It seemed that the blackout also concerned the sun.

Charles, who had always been a very solitary and brooding guy, in the past had had encounters with extraterrestrials, that is, with beings who had qualified as such. “ We came from a little planet whose existence you inhabitants of the Earth, despite all your science and research, ignore. Our planet remains hidden from your eyes and telescopes” Those strange beings had told him. Those almost funny being had the appearance and the build of children, with three hands, one hanging from their neck, and with antennas like those of the snails on their heads.

During the meetings he had with those little beings who came who knows from where, they, the little extraterrestrial beings, had been very friendly with him. They had cured his bad teeth giving him a green tablet with a fragrant scent. They had made him recover a big sum of money lost at the game. They had made his headache go away tickling his head with their antennae.

During his last meeting with them, they had told him he was THEIR CHOSEN ONE. They would always come to his help ( rescue)if he got into trouble. It would have been enough for him to call them and they would have soon intervened ( come). For this purpose, they had left him A BIG SILVER PIN which when he needed help he should have clipped to the belt of his trousers, being careful to not injure ( wound) himself, because they didn’t want bloodshed, so they had said to him.

Until now he had never resorted to the help of that silver pin, even if he had been attempted sometimes. He had been about to resort to this extraterrestrial help when Marianne, the girl he had madly fallen in love with had told him NO, and also when his dog Freddy had died, hit by a car. But now that the night of the blackout had been going on for days, the sun seemed disappeared, it kept not rising for days and days, and all the people had gone mad ____they had started shooting, had started causing fires, and there were accidents on every street corner ____NOW Charles really thought about turning to the pin asking for help. But just now that he would have urgently needed it, he couldn’t find ….that safety pin that he always carried with him in his trousers pocket, to have it close at hand. Since the pin was no longer in his trousers pocket and, in those conditions, he did not know where to look for it, Charles began to think, absurdly, that he had lost the pin during the attack by the ferocious dogs of his nightmare. But he was so convinced of ( about) it that, after having searched it left and right, helping in his search more with touch than with sight, he decided that, in order to find where the pin had ended up, he would have to relive his nightmare, in the sense of dreaming it again. After all, with the anguish created by that interminable blackout, it wasn’t at all difficult to have nightmares. So it was that, after being attacked really ( in reality) by big and angry dogs which bit him, putting his life at risk, he happened again to dream of the nightmare in which those ugly and bad dogs chased him and he, trying to get rid of them, fell in a deep pit, where the bad dogs kept being on him. In his nightmare, Charles was able to see where the pin had ended up: down into the pit. Still in his nightmare, he managed, with a desperate effort, while those bad beasts attacked him and hit him, to grab the pin and put it in his trousers pocket.  And when he came out of his nightmare waking up, he really found the pin in his trousers pocket. Now he could use it to ask his extraterrestrial friends for help. But while he had been anxious to find it again he was sure that he would immediately have used the pin to ask for their intervention, now that he had it in his hands Charles was beginning to hesitate, to have doubts. Of course, those strange little beings had been friendly and well-disposed with him, but could he really trust them in a so hard situation? What did he know about them? Those strange, even funny beings had told him that they came from a planet that the inhabitants of the Earth did not even know existed, that was hidden from their sight, even to their telescopes.

Sure, the situation in his city, as in all the country, was very dramatic, to say the least. All the people were desperate and indulged in rash, wicked acts.

Charles kept holding the pin in his hands and wondering what he should do: should he use it or not? The chaos increased dramatically. There were also earthquakes and big frozen hailstones began to fall that seemed a pebbles of ice on the terrified population, more and more in the grip of panic, and more and more becoming violent.

Charles squeezed the pin tightly in his hands and said to himself that he had to dare, he had to try to use it to ask for help. NOW OR NEVER. What could have happened worse than what was happening? After a last look to the darkness of that perpetual night, he, therefore, hooked the silver spin to the belt of his trousers, taking care not to injure himself as his extraterrestrial friends, who did not want bloodshed, had recommended. Only a moment passed and the sun shone again in the sky! Wow! It was salvation for him and for everyone in his country. Soon after electricity would return, telecommunications would resume, but Charles could not realize this because when the sun had come back on in the sky he had flown onto the planet unknown to the inhabitants of the Earth.