Day 14 - Electric Story

Electric Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Eduardo had a unique skill.  He could absorb electricity.  A lot of it.  As far as unique abilities go, it was fairly unique.

Calloused and cold the world may be.  Unique abilities alone do not often pay the bills.  It is what a person does with said unique and unusual ability that sets them apart.

Eduardo was faced with a life style choice at an early age.  Maybe he could learn a trade or two.  Become an electrician, perhaps?  Certainly a man with electrical abilities could find a way to make that pay.  But would it be enough?  Was he just after a living, or did he want something more?  Perhaps he would become a showman – learn a magic ability or two.  Certainly with skills such as he possessed, he could learn a sense of stage presence and someone somewhere guide him on the path towards celebrity.  But fame wasn’t that appealing to him.

The problem was that Eduardo wasn’t exactly sure what was appealing.  When there is absence, something always rushes to fill the void.  Eduardo’s choices were influenced by those around him.  He grew up strictly middle class but he and his friends had expensive tastes.  Eduardo learned to use a trick or two with electricity to entertain friends and impress women. 

When you do a trick or two, other people tend to notice.  Perform enough tricks and it’s all but guaranteed that many people will learn of a unique skill.  Enough people learn of a unique skill, there’s a good chance that some of those people will figure out ways for you to use your skills whether you want to of not.  Know the wrong sorts of people and then the wrong sorts of decisions will be made.

A vacuum in space will always be filled.  It’s just a rule.

Eduardo learned to kill street lights, making an ambush easier.

Eduardo learned a lot and what he didn’t know his new found friends were more than willing to teach him.

A lifestyle was created.  A lifestyle to be maintained and expanded.  Expensive tastes seldom turn into less expensive tastes, especially when they are within reach.

Learn a thing or two and practice now and again and soon you can learn control and tweak what needs tweaked.  Security cameras short out.  Monitors shut down.  Motion detectors detect nothing.  Learn to do all that, and with the right friends, you can make a pretty good living.

Of course energy is neither made nor destroyed.  It is transferred.  Eduardo wasn’t much of a scholar.  He never learned such rules.  The human body in not meant to absorb that much electricity.  Eduardo’s friends were no scientists.  They didn’t know anything about that.

No, they only knew how to ask Eduardo to do more.  And Eduardo only knew how to say yes to success.  That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?  You’re not supposed to worry about how you’re burning out your internal organs or changing the electrical impulses in your brain.  And certainly you don’t expect to electrocute yourself.

No, when you have unique and marketable skills, you’re expected to make the most of them.  And that’s exactly what Eduardo intended to do.

It’s just that nature sometimes has other plans.