Nobody knew whether the blackout would last a day or a year. The city held its breath. Fridges warmed, lifts slept between floors, and people who had never met stood in apartment hallways holding candles.
On the sixth night, Mrs. Imani brought a pot of rice to the courtyard. Someone added beans. Someone else brought tinned tomatoes. The final flourish came from a cracked wooden pepper grinder found in a picnic basket.
The meal was simple, but the pepper made everyone notice it. People began talking, first about practical things, then about names, pets, childhoods, fears. The lights returned before morning. Still, every Friday after that, they cooked in the courtyard, because they had learned that civilisation might begin again with one shared grinder.