Working himself into a red-faced frenzy, Johnathon scribbled word after word into his perfectly sleek, immaculate personal organizer, as he had been for the past thirty minutes. The tiny plastic stick used to make the nonexistant marks on its digitized surface was almost about to snap from the pressure he was placing upon it. His notes had become gradually less coherent, moving from work related suggestions to frustrated ramblings about the pointlessness of life and how oddly he spelled his name to ideas for suicide attempts involving objects readily available in the tiny airport terminal, and finally to absolute gibberish that even the organizer, in all its infinate wisdom and understanding as a modern convenience, could not comprehend.

All of a sudden, the tiny device emitted a tiny beep and shut off, with only a blinking "Low Batt" light to indicate its reason for doing so. Johnathon howled at the top of his lungs, dropped to his knees, and hurled the organizer into the crowd where it pegged an elderly woman right between the eyes. "I REALY AM IN HELL!" Johnathon shrieked, jumping again to his feet and running around like the madman he'd become. This, as was noted by several onlookers, the display of an uncivilized and clearly unimportant man.

There can be something said for the old fashioned pad and pencil.

___________

"I'm sorry," the clerk said for the thousandth time, "Without electricity, the cash register won't work, and without the cash register, I can't sell you any food. There would be no record of it, no way of keeping track of inventory. . . it would be madness."

"Please," begged the old woman, "I'm so hungry."

"I'm sorry ma'am," replied the clerk- Benny, if you don't care for formality- "I wish I could help you."

"Listen you son of a bitch," growled the lady, grabbing Benny by the collar of his uniformly-colored polo shirt, "If you don't give me some food I'll splatter your guts all over this counter. I was a nurse in World War II- I talked to the wounded soldiers- I know seventeen ways to kill a man with my bare hands. You don't think I- -"

Suddenly from somewhere in the unseen distance, a personal organizer struck her in the forehead. Her grip on Benny's collar loosening, she collapsed unconscius to the ground. Benny stared for a second.

"Wow. Whoever threw that was a really good shot."

Benny bent over to pick up the organizer, but it was out of batteries. So he stole the candies from the old lady's purse and ran off into the crowd.

_____________

The crowd outside the doors shouted in protest. Well, they couldn't rightfully be called the crowd OUTSIDE the doors. . . they were INSIDE the doors, which was precisely their problem. But whatever you want to call them, they shouted in protest. They had hesitated too long to try to rush out the door, and another security guard, scarlet faced with physical exertion, had come along and put up the poles and elastic straps that constituted an unbreakable barrier to all civil servants.

"It is simply ridiculous," shouted the small yet surprizingly outspoken man who had taken Joann's place, "Not to let us leave! I mean really, explain to me your reasoning in this entire process!"

"Well," explained the security guard, a small mousy man with a timid voice who wrung his navy blue cap in his hands as he spoke and avoided eye contact with anyone or anything besides the carpeting and/or upholstry, "Bruno there told us all not to let anyone leave, because of regulations."

"Regulations?"

"Regulations."

"What kind of regulations?"

"You know. . . regulations."

"No, I don't know. What regulations?"

"Listen, he's the boss, and we all gotta go by what he says. I can't do anything about it."

"Where is this Bruno now?"

The guard motioned to his fallen superior, lying on the ground staining the carpet with his vital fluids, as he had been doing with no change for quite some time.

"Him!? Your hands are tied by him!? He's unconscius! Possibly dead! He's the reason we can't leave!?"

"Yessir."

____________

"Joann," Sig pleaded, "Don't you think you should slow down? All that stomping and fuming can't be good for you. . ."

"Shut UP, Sigmond."

"Please don't call me Sigmond. . ."

"Go screw your mother, Freud."

Freezing for a second in his tracks, Sig let Joann gain a significant lead on him. "THAT was uncalled for."

"Get over it," Joann called from the distance, causing Sig to look up and hurry to catch up with her. The long, hanging fluorescent lights rolled by overhead, which on any other day would have given light to the bleak gray walls of the garage, but today were just inactive reminders of the absolute darkness Sig and Joann had found themselves in. "I see sunlight!" exclaimed Joann in the first happy tone of voice Sig had heard her use in quite some time. She sped up even more, almost sprinting by the time she reached the tiny parking booth. Practically bursting with joy she moved to go around the yellow and black striped bar separating her from the outside world- until she was stopped by a tiny man in a large hat.

"You can't leave through here," he grunted, his already wrinkled face contorting stubbornly.

Joann studdered wide eyed for a second. "Why not?" she finally managed to ask.

"I gotta raise the bar for you to be let out. If I wanna raise the bar I gotta get your parking verification and payment, and to process all that I gotta have electricity. So I can't let you out right now, not 'till the juice comes back on."

"Please," Joann begged, looking the man in his beady eyes, "No one even has to know! Just let us go. . ."

"'Fraid I can't. Sorry."

"That is the- -"

___________

"- -stupidest thing I have ever heard!" screamed the protesting man. "To not let people leave during a power outage, it just- -"

___________

"- -doesn't make any sense at all! There's no reason for you even to be- -"

___________

"- -keeping us here, it seems to be a matter of beauracracy! If you'd just think about it, you'd realize that- -"

____________

"- -you're putting far too much hip into it. You just swing the club naturally, like it's an extension of your body," Peter demonstrated this with a long drive across the golf course. "You see? Now, it's as simple as- -"

_____________

"- -turning your head the other direction and allowing us the leave! What you're doing is- -"

_____________

"- -utterly pointless, please just- -"

____________

"LET"

____________

"US"

____________

"GO!"

____________

"I can't do it," the mousy guard shook his head, leaning against the rope protecting the crowd from the doors, "I have my orders."

Just like that, there was a roar from the hoard, and they all lunged forward, swarming the guard in a mass of agression. The doors and all escape was forgotten, the crowd's entire energy was now focused on making this one man pay. The guard screamed out, but no sympathetic ears could hear. Just then, there was a flash of light and a voice.

_____________

Joann was holding the old man to the ground now and pummeling him.

"JOANN!" Sig shouted yet again, trying desperately and unsuccessfully to wrench her off the guard, "Get ahold of yourself! For God's sake!"

Suddenly, both Sig and Joann were blinded. The glory of artificial light immediately illuminated the entire garage, and Joann loosed her grip on the old guard as a voice began to speak.

_______________

"We are very sorry for the slight inconvenience. Now boarding flights 286 and 252."

_______________

Joann and Sig stood rooted to the ground, deathly silent for a long moment after the intercom cut off. Blinking once or twice, Sig looked to Joann.

"Well," she said, releasing the captive guard, "I suppose we have a flight to catch."