Filament

Filament



I was sitting in my favorite chair— a recliner with blue suede upholstery, coffee stains, and cigarette burns— staring into the light bulb. I could feel the filament burning its outline into my retinas as I followed each individual loop in the coil. For at least two hours, I sat there, not moving except an occasional shift to readjust myself. I don’t know what I find so fascinating in light bulbs. My wife of thirty years never did understand.



Craig, what are you doing?  It would have been thirty-four years, two days ago.



I am compelled to peer into them, this one especially. Every day, I find myself removing the shade so I can look into the bare bulb, past the lightly frosted glass to the tiny coiled wire, glowing with energy. I have the feeling that if I stare long enough, then I’ll see it—I’ll know… something. Something that’s hidden from the rest of the world.

It started with a faint tingling in my skin. Every pore seemed to be responding to the incredible heat pouring off that tiny wire. Then burning, but only at my extremities—my fingers, toes, and even my unwashed sandy brown hair now blackened and seared off. But still I sat there, transfixed by the white-hot coil. I felt so sure that if I just endured, just sat motionless for another moment, then I would have it. The burning crept up and down my limbs like four fiery arachnids until it reached my torso, the core. There it seethed for a moment before bursting outward from me like a hydrogen bomb. I could feel each of my particles disengage from one another, dissolving Craig Johnson and regrouping as a cloud of pure energy that hovered, poised over the light bulb for moments that felt like hours.

Then each tiny piece of myself-that-was was pulled down into the heated strand of tungsten, inexorably sucked into place. I felt the particles of myself now vibrating with the joy of being as I traveled around the coil. Bits of myself dissipated as heat and I bid them farewell, good-bye to lost energy. As I neared the last loop of the coil, I could sense the end. I shrieked with each atom as we plummeted toward the base of the bulb, our scream like the near silent wail of a thousand televisions left on. Out and through the cord we dropped, into oblivion forever.



I lifted my head from the armrest where it had fallen. Not yet, I haven’t found it.