"The Keyboard Sang: A Postscript to BLACKOUT"

“Queen Ester Pearson didn’t just quote scripture—she enforced it. And somehow, that switch across the Bible became a symbol of love, order, and the kind of fear that teaches you to survive.”

It wasn’t a message. It wasn’t even a word. Just iy+, typed by fingers hovering over a different laptop, not intending anything at all. But it happened. And now it belongs to the archive.

Funny how the body sometimes speaks before the mind catches up. Like a whisper from the past, or a note from the part of me that still believes in signs. iy+—I’m yours. I yield. I remember.

It fits, doesn’t it? On a day when I was revisiting the blackout, Queen Ester’s switch across the Bible, the flicker of memory and fear and love. That little slip of the keyboard felt like a benediction. Like the machine was listening too.

I think about how often I’ve tried to control the narrative. To shape it, refine it, revise it until it sings. But sometimes the most honest lines are the ones that arrive uninvited.

Like a blackout. Like a switch. Like iy+.

So I’m keeping it. Not as a mistake, but as a signature. A quiet code between me and the archive. Between me and her. Between me and the part of myself that still believes in fire and brimstone, and still hopes to survive it.

The keyboard sang today. And I listened. iy+, dp++… they’re not just keystrokes. They’re echoes. Little improvisations in the symphony of memory and reflection composed since Florence, since San Francisco, since Queen Ester’s porch.

It’s fitting, isn’t it? That in a past post about blackouts, the machine still found a way to speak. Not with light, but with rhythm.

With the quiet music of fingers hovering, remembering Blackout first written August 30, 2018 in Florence, SC:

🕯️ BLACKOUT (Repeat Performance)
Friday, August 15, 2025 Belated Heavenly Birthday: Queen Ester Jackson-Pearson (August 12, 1917)
I experienced my first blackout last night in Florence, SC—the place I’m supposed to be writing, but instead I was watching The Inheritors Part I. The irony wasn’t lost on me. No one is truly prepared for a blackout. It comes like an unexpected thief in the night, just like she used to say.

Queen Ester. My grandmother. My guardian. She raised us three boys in lieu of Mom, armed with Bible verses, old wives’ tales, and a switch broken fresh from the bush. Her favorite saying—“tomorrow is not promised, so do it now”—used to irritate the hell out of me. She said it like breath, like gospel. And when we didn’t listen, she had a way of making sure we remembered.

She was always talking about the end of the world. Fire and brimstone. Judgment. So my middle brother and I used to plan our escape—how we’d hide together when it all came crashing down, how we’d survive the chaos she swore was coming.

Funny how fear becomes memory. How memory becomes love.

I thought of him last night. My second brother. And I realized: there was a time when family meant everything to me. Maybe it still does, in the quiet ways.

I had flashlights, candles, and battery backup for the cellphone. I sent a silly message to SK, but I’m not a devoted mobile user. I hate the small screen, hate the glasses I need to see it, and frankly, I don’t understand the thing. Sometimes I think it’s possessed—doing things I never asked it to do. It’s a monster with its own mind.

I’m old school. I miss The Edge of Night. I fell in love with the computer more than any other invention. And when it’s gone, I go a little mad.

That’s something I need to work on. Something I need to get over. Because when the lights go out—when the fire and brimstone finally arrive—I want to be ready. Not just with candles and batteries, but with peace. With memory. With the kind of love that survives the blackout.

Happy heavenly birthday, Queen Ester. You were the light before the outage. You still are.
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