Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Electrified

It was a bright sunny day. The sun, a million miles away waved hello, letting each one of them, each one who turned their face up to the cloudless sky, know that another day had come. The reds were redder, the sunlight was stronger, the green of the treetops shone as though she had never seen them. Each of the cars that passed her on the road shone with the gleaming brilliance of light hitting smooth metal.
She drove with her window down and her left arm casually resting on the driver’s side door, feeling the soft breeze of the afternoon glide across her skin like water over marble. The city beyond the car’s surface was bustling. Tall cement buildings lined the streets, and they too gleamed in the sunshine, as though in this one day they finally were the sum total of their architect’s dream, and all the hopes of each person that entered their revolving doors and every person that walked the halls had finally come alive. And the buildings heaved with the breath of life, and the windows moaned, letting their long-held sounds out into the air, where they were met with the gentle groan of the wind.
Her foot pressed lightly on the gas and as the car eased forward, she felt faint stinging in her toes. She wiggled her fingers, feeling pins and needles there too. When she had left her house that morning, the doorknob gave her the first electrical shock. Then each step to the car was one tiny jolt after the other. The earth was energized and she wondered what lighting bolts had shed their power the night before.
The car’s handle was another little shock, and as she reached for it she saw a jagged blue-white current race from her middle finger to the handle. As she pulled into downtown, she saw that the cars were plentiful, each on their way somewhere different, but the traffic moved at a steady pace and the breeze kept on coming, not wanting to miss a thing. And she drove on, but she saw it all moving, almost dancing under her gaze. The tall street lamps wavered and the telephone lines bounced up and down, greeting her with their own language. She turned to her friend in the passenger seat, his face greeting her own with curiosity and a soft smile.
“Everything’s alive today. The cars, the buildings, the street lamps. Everything’s alive and shocking me with its power. My hands are still stinging from the metal knobs.”
He laughed. A gentle deep rumble that came from the kernel of true understanding he carried in the center of his chest.
“It’s you. It’s all coming to you, like a massive network of electrical currents that are all seeking you out. Those electrons feel you, they feel your charge and they’re jumping, like literally jumping towards you in great rivers of energy. It’s not everything else, not the street lamps or trees, it’s you that is electrified.”
She took a deep breath in, inhaling every drop of oxygen her lungs could hold. Drawing in the great rivers that flowed to her like water down a mountain.

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