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- Short Stories by Loafman
Below is a short sample from A Freckle Shaped Like California, a short story by Patrick Loafman.
She loves electricity: the buzz of electrons, the hum of telephone wires, the tingle of a doorknob after she’s walked across a carpet. Static electricity. Why is it called static when it jumps from metal to flesh?
Electricity is anything but static. It’s alive.
She imagines electrons whirling around a nucleus; she sees a single atom
as an entire universe. She wishes she were that small. Sometimes, she is
that small.
She remembers a science fair when her sister’s limp hair stood on end as
she touched a ball charged with electricity. Her sister was grounded and never felt the shock. That was the lesson. Grounding. Safety amid electricity’s force.
Her father was an electrician; he ran wires through the walls of homes as
they were built. He called the wires the “veins,” because “they pump the energy into the home.” The plumbing was the “intestines of a home.”
She loved her dad. She hated him, too. And she hated that she loved him.
She imagines her soul is nothing but electricity.
She loves electricity: the buzz of electrons, the hum of telephone wires, the tingle of a doorknob after she’s walked across a carpet. Static electricity. Why is it called static when it jumps from metal to flesh?
Electricity is anything but static. It’s alive.
She imagines electrons whirling around a nucleus; she sees a single atom
as an entire universe. She wishes she were that small. Sometimes, she is
that small.
She remembers a science fair when her sister’s limp hair stood on end as
she touched a ball charged with electricity. Her sister was grounded and never felt the shock. That was the lesson. Grounding. Safety amid electricity’s force.
Her father was an electrician; he ran wires through the walls of homes as
they were built. He called the wires the “veins,” because “they pump the energy into the home.” The plumbing was the “intestines of a home.”
She loved her dad. She hated him, too. And she hated that she loved him.
She imagines her soul is nothing but electricity.