My computer crashed yesterday, the one where I sit and do my writing. All my work is sitting on an external hard drive that I cannot access. Thank goodness I have a flash drive and some of my work is saved to the cloud.

I have no cell phone, but I do own an iPad, so I can still do many of the things that I want to do.

But what if I didn’t? What if the world suddenly went dark due to a glitch of some kind, and there is no Internet, no cell phones, no iPad or other devices. Imagine how frustrating and limiting that would feel.

Your task is to write that story. Don’t go back in time before all those devices had been created. Write a contemporary piece that deals with the cravings, the intense need that people feel. The hollowness inside. The inability to connect with friends and family on facebook or Instagram or twitter.

What does your character do to fill in the time? Write letters by hand? Draw or color? Go jogging or for a brisk walk around the block? Go to a café or coffeehouse and sit with other bereft strangers?

This is your task.

Have fun with this one.