Man on the Moon in Manhattan

This is weird. I have to say right off the top how weird this is.

Like everybody else in Lower Manhattan, I've been without power since Hurricane Sandy hit, and the weird thing about that stark fact hit me while I was lying in bed last night with the windows open, and nothing to hear but the moaning of the wind.

This is unusual, because I live in the heart of Greenwich Village -- literally at the intersection of Car Alarm Alley and Drunken Shouting Way.

But nobody is around these nights, unless you count those silent dog-walkers, creeping along timidly, preceded by their flashlight beams.

Total silence can be extremely disturbing to a life-long New Yorker. On those rare occasions when it actually is quiet outside, I can always hear my lousy refrigerator humming, but not now, of course.

There's nothing to do but read, which I do by flashlight, and when my eyelids grow heavy I drop the book and click off the flashlight.

It was just as I clicked off the flashlight that this weird thought hit me, and it was this:

Nobody, but nobody, can reach me.

It's true. My land-line phone is dead. Ditto my cell phone. Ditto my internet. And even if somebody actually came to my house and pressed my buzzer -- well, that runs on electricity, so that's dead, too.

No texts, no phone calls, no e-mails, no tweets, no nothing.

As far as communication with my fellow man is concerned, I might as well be on the moon.

And here's the really weird part, because it either means I'm in good mental health or bound for a strait jacket, but anyway, here goes:

It felt wonderful, and I mean wonderful, to be totally out of touch.

Maybe because I know it won't last. The power will return, along with the street noise and the texts and the e-mails and the phone calls, but for right now, this isn't so bad. Compared to people who lost everything they had to Sandy, it's nothing at all.

I know what you're wondering: How the hell can he be writing this, if he has no electricity?

I'm at my desk at work, that's how. I'm about to leave and head back to the darkness of lower Manhattan, back to the moon.

And if you happen to pass my windows tonight, please -- try and keep the noise down. Just for another night or two.

Charlie Carillo is a producer for the TV show "Inside Edition." Before that he was a reporter and a columnist for the "New York Post." All seven of his novels are available on Amazon Kindle - "God Plays Favorites," "Found Money," "My Ride With Gus," "Raising Jake," "One Hit Wonder," "Shepherd Avenue" and "The Man Who Killed Santa Claus: A Love Story."