Electricity by Steven Moss

Shortlisted for the first Lunate 500 competition

“There is a wonderful moment in this vividly imagined piece where the rug is ever so gently pulled, and the reader pauses for a moment, questioning whether they really do have the measure of the story. It is when we meet the narrator for the fourth time. The moment appears to have passed, the framing device used by the author abandoned, perhaps. Not quite, and it makes for a tender and compassionate step-through into the pitch-perfect ending. In lesser hands, that ending might have been overwrought, but Steven’s mastery of tone throughout forestalls the possibility. An affecting flash, but, critically, very imaginatively told.”

Lunate editors

***

Picture this.

Teenage girl, cherry lip gloss, posters on the wall. Sick of being told what and what not to do. Plugs in her stereo. Bang.

This first time lifts her clean off her feet, throws her sideways, landing dazed in a heap. Everything buzzing. Trembling, entirely.

Her Dad said, ‘Well, that could have been worse’ and a mate of his fixed up the plug.

The next time, a lesson. Electric fences aren’t the best places for first kisses. Yelling loudly, her wet hand grabbing hold when her legs caved, pulled on the full sting of the wire and again, electrified, felt the tingle in her elbow for weeks.

‘Fuck me,’ she said. ‘Fuck me.’

Then, bent in, knees tucked into belly, pads plugged to her lower back asks ‘How’s this meant to feel?’ through an intake of breath. Her husband, one hand on hers, and one on the manual says ‘TENS is a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation Device, designed to give pain relief during labour. It works by...’

‘Epidural?’
‘Yes.’
The glow of completion, child on her breast.

Later, she busies herself thinking Why am I cooking the chicken legs? and places bowls full of crisps, chills the prosecco, puts balloons, cakes, banners in place. Her son wraps her with his long arms and leans over to kiss her with elaborate affection.

‘Happy Birthday Mum.’

She hugs him, says ‘Thank you,’ wonders if one was enough and pulls him tighter to answer the question. Husband, back late, hands her a box with a bow and a silver engraved 40, and she hears the ‘love you’, just, over the clatter of family and friends in the lounge, but she’s already seen the receipt so she places it down, next to the chicken legs on the kitchen table.

Catches, as she turns, soft static from a balloon.

And retiring, dispensing advice to the twenty somethings, with their fabulous hair and lip gloss and smiles and so much opportunity, over bottles of Champagne in the tightly packed bar after her last day with the firm, telling them about that first time, about the time she was lifted clean off her feet and thrown high in the air.

Says, ‘I miss it, I miss it, I miss it.’