Power Failure

It was an autumn evening in Eilat. I sat next to the open picture window, reading and enjoying the view.

Eilat's extraordinary combination of desert climate and tropical sea draws people to it from all over the world, all year-round. But there is nothing to compare with the short-lived spring and autumn seasons: the days warm and the nights cool, the air dry and soft, and the ever-present desert wind dropping for hours on end. When that happens near sunset the sea becomes glass-like and changes color from dark blue to a deep, purplish-red, mirroring the Edomite Mountains from shore to shore and justifying its name of "the Red Sea".

And afterwards, sometimes, an indigo twilight will descend that turns everything blue: sky, sea, mountains...even the streets and cars, buildings and people. All take on fantastic and indefinable shades of blue that darken and deepen... until it is night.

A dry, feathery breeze came through the window. I was thinking of getting up to make dinner when the lights went out. Blown fuse? No: the building across the street was dark, as were the street lights. A major power failure. I went to the kitchen for candles, half-expecting the power to come on again as soon as they were all lit and strategically placed, a familiar variation of "Murphy's Law".

The power stayed off.

I went back to the window to enjoy the unusual sight. Most of the town was dark, with only a faint glow from the direction of the beach where the hotel generators were operating, and the lights of *Aqaba twinkling across the bay.

It was dark and quiet except for the muted noises of people moving around in nearby apartments and an occasional passing car, and it reminded me of a camping trip in the desert: no radios or televisions, no light but the campfire, no distractions...just the quiet dark of the desert and the breeze and the stars.

I looked up at them: they were clear and sharp in the dry air, sparkling like jewels, their beauty at that moment defying any earthly simile...

...I was no longer standing on the surface of the Earth...

I took a deep breath and gripped the window rail, hard. Then glanced at the apartment building across the way. Lights were appearing: candles behind lace curtains, the cold blue-white of emergency lighting, the outline of an old fashioned kerosene lamp. Like me people were coming to the windows, children leaning out to check on the extent of the power failure, enjoying the unusual sight.

I'd only been gone for a moment then...but what a moment. "I" had been somewhere in the void of space, surrounded by black emptiness in all directions, broken only by the stars - themselves huge globes of pulsing light dwarfed by the spaces between them...

It was too overwhelming an experience to leave room for anything else, even fear. There were no familiar frames of reference: no sounds, no smells, no landscapes, no horizon. No sense of gravity even, that most constant umbilicus between Earth and all its children.

And I'd been given a taste of it.

If I live to see passenger flights into space, will I have the courage to experience all that again, in the flesh? I honestly don't know.

But from that moment I began to appreciate the kind of courage it takes to become an astronaut: to be willing to face that void - as a matter of choice.

The lights came back on suddenly; I heard the refrigerator start pumping again, radios coming to life in mid-song... the normal buzz and hum of evening activities picked up where they had left-off. I glanced up at the stars again: they were dimmer, farther away with the glow of the city's lights in the background.

I turned away from the window, extinguished the candles one by one, and went into the kitchen to make dinner.

*After Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty I sent this article to His Majesty, King Hussein of Jordan, for his birthday; his chief of court sent a letter of thanks in return.