As soon as she blinked the light went out. Not a fizz, hiss or crackle as the glow disappeared, dwindling to a tiny dot, a lone star in the sky before vanishing completely.
She repeated the action, blinking once, twice, thrice, focussing on the item in question. First up, a single light bulb suspended overhead, a milky teardrop. Then a string of fairy lights draped around her bedroom mirror which seemingly winked back before fizzing out. Finally she tried her luck with a tiffany lamp watching the red-green glow dissolve into an amber haze. It seemed that whatever she fixed her gaze upon, the electricity flowed from its thin element charging her veins and illuminating her from the inside out.
“You’re positively glowing love,” her mum said. “Is it a new type of foundation?”
Lola didn’t let on the real reason for her becoming glow.
“It’s the nice weather we’re having,” she said. “It really brings out the best in me.”
*
At night, Lola makes sure that her mum is tucked up snug before stepping out into the cool summer night. Beneath the sodium lights, she fixes her sight on the tangerine smudge currently smouldering the concrete pavement, and welcomes the familiar passage of electricity through flesh. She wonders how much longer she’ll be able to keep her static zapping a secret.
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