It didn’t go all at once.
First, WhatsApp stopped sending. Then the weather app froze in a way that felt personal. Then a page half-loaded and stayed that way, like it had lost the will to continue.
By the time I realised what was happening, Carmen was already looking at me with that expression that means, this is going to be a you problem.
“It’s probably just our router,” I said, with the confidence of a man who knows this is never just the router.
I restarted everything. Twice. I unplugged things and plugged them back in with ceremony. I stood very close to the wall where the internet comes in, as if it might be shy.
Nothing.
Down in the village, it turned out, everything was down. No internet. No cards working. No signal that could be relied on for more than a message and a prayer.
In London, this would have been treated as a minor apocalypse. Here, it was treated as a slightly annoying weather event.
“At least it’s not raining,” Paco said, when I went to ask him if he knew what was happening, as if that settled it.
The first evening was the worst. I kept picking up my phone and putting it down again, like a nervous habit I hadn’t realised I had. Work things floated vaguely in my head. Things I might be missing. Things that probably weren’t on fire, but still.
Carmen lit candles.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ll survive.”
We ate dinner slower than usual. There was nothing to check. No background noise except the village and the occasional shout somewhere up the hill. We talked. Properly talked. About nothing important and a few things that probably were.
Later, we played cards. I lost. Repeatedly. Carmen claimed it was because she grew up without the internet. I said this was not a fair comparison.
The next morning, the bar opened as usual. Cash only. Someone had brought a small radio. The news was vague and unhelpful. A man I don’t really know told me it would “be back when it’s back” and that this was also true of most things.
By lunchtime, people were sitting outside more than usual. Talking. Arguing. Doing whatever people did before they could look things up mid-sentence.
Carmen and I went for a walk without maps. We got slightly lost. On a path we’ve walked dozens of times.
“It’s more interesting this way,” she said.
“I don’t like interesting,” I said. “I like correct.”
That night, the lights in the bar were low and the place was fuller than I’d seen it in weeks. Someone played music off an old phone. Someone else sang. Badly. Nobody filmed it.
On Sunday morning, the internet came back while we were making coffee. Carmen’s phone buzzed first. Then mine.
We looked at the screens.
We didn’t pick them up straight away.
“Give it a minute,” she said.
So we did.