Metaphorically in the dark, because I begin writing these lines at 4:30 in the afternoon, when it's still a splendid day and, on the other side of the editorial office windows, people are crossing the street up and down, without it being obvious that our world has turned upside down simply by turning off a main switch. Now a child has seen me writing and, knocking on the door excitedly, said, "Dad, there's light here!", unaware that I'm writing with the reserve of two hours and eleven minutes of battery life left in my laptop. There's a generator, of course, but we're reserving it for those who keep the website alive, just in case. And we're ready to go to the Liceu—thank you!—to continue working and ensure the publication of the newspaper if our reserves finally run out. Since Wi-Fi is also rationed, I decide to do the analog thing of going out into the street and asking people how they're getting information about what's happening. I'll be back.
Hello again. The young people are getting ahead. A group of after-school counselors were well-informed (considering that at the moment there are more questions than answers). They listened to the radio, either analog or through a Bluetooth speaker. A couple of tourists admit to being completely lost. Two middle-aged women tell me they're taking their dogs out at odd hours, so they can ask the neighbors. They tell me the phone store on the corner is making a killing selling transistor radios. But at least it has a public service vocation, since it's installed an open-air radio station, with a loudspeaker, for those who come by. The store manager swears that he hasn't raised his prices. And that in one day he's sold as many radios as he did the previous month. This reinforces for me, once again, the need not to kill the airwaves, as the digital apostles sometimes advocate.
