The day after he left the light over the kitchen sink burned out. Two days later, the wrought iron standing lamp in the living room. Yesterday, the yellow bulb on the front porch. She couldn’t remember a light burning out the whole time they had lived there. They must have – he must have changed them when she wasn’t paying attention – but she couldn’t even remember ever buying light bulbs. She wondered if she had taken some strange electromagnetic charge into her body that was causing the bulbs to burn out, if he had always held the illumination when he was around, or if together they had produced enough energy to keep them from going out. She had already decided not to replace them. She was going to let all of the bulbs in the house burn out, one by one, even the tiny one in the refrigerator. She liked the idea of a dark house, of not even being able to navigate the kitchen at night by opening the door to the fridge. She liked the idea of learning to see what wasn’t illuminated. And now that he was gone, she could.
~Excerpt from a short story I wrote in 2003 called "Losing Sleep"
(I'm still trying to keep mouse-and-keyboard time to a minimum...can't remember how I survived before Copy and Paste.)
Thanks Matt! I have actually submitted this one all over, so I'm hoping it will appear in some distinguished lit journal in the near future. Or I could send it to you if you send me your email address along with a money order for $19.99. (kidding...just email me at kellylovejohnson [AT] mindspring.com).
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