The story of a light bulb

This is a world where the house appliance talks. They may not like to talk to humans directly, but they surely talk to each other.

The moment the light bulb first opened his eyes, he felt wrong about his surroundings. It was a basement, not a fancy, luxurious, 21^st century home theater, but a shabby and ill-furnished warehouse. With his own light, the light bulb could tell the basement was only so big as four tatamis but was so crowded with other boxes and machines that so many corners were under thick, dark shadow. A wind came from nowhere wiggled the light bulb and the dish forward and backward. The light bulb looked down (to us, it is up) and quickly realized that he was hanged by a wire on a beam, in the 21^st century! (Nowadays, no one really mounts things like this anymore.) The wind came from a small window near the roof, and it seemed dark outside. Maybe just the proper time to sleep. The light bulb thought.

“How do you do, young man?” an old British voice suddenly appeared, “Here, the steam iron. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice… to meet you.” The light bulb hesitated a bit.

“I told ya, well, sir!” Another loud and thick voice appeared, joking about the British voice. “Young people use more fashionable greetings.” The refrigerator stopped for a second, “Howdy?”

“Fine… I guess?” The light bulb hesitated for some time again.

“Yeah. That is my boy. Don’t get scared by the boiling vessel. He doesn’t know proper way of modern greetings.” the refrigerator said.

Such a noisy guy, the light bulb thought. Meanwhile, “Ohhhh.” the light bulb replied.

“You have just called me what–” shouted the iron.

“Okay–. Mr. Teasmade.” Without waiting for the iron to finish, the refrigerator cut in with his louder voice.

“Refrigerator, be respectful.” A low but sedate voice put an abrupt halt to all the wildness. Such strength from the voice may even make you forget to breath. “Hello, I am the washing machine.” (A full stop.) “These are my friends. Hope you forgive their rudeness.” (Another full stop.) “We were built in 60s, but surely, we will always make our job done.”

“Ohhhhhhhhh. Okay.”

Then came the silence.

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After couple of months staying together, the light bulb found himself do not like them. Unlike the perfection of the brand-new, shiny glowing light bulb himself, those three were full of imperfection. The iron was always complaining about itch under his belly, where the steam came out from, which was probably due to some rust. The refrigerator was muscly but could not control his strength well. He sometimes froze the bottled milk inside, triggering the house owner. And the washing machine, when loaded, made the noise just as loud as a dying cow.

If I have to live with these freaks from 60s for more than 60 years, I would be very much crazy. The light bulb thought to himself. He just could not understand, why the house owner still kept these old freaks with so many imperfections and never swapped them for new and perfect one.

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However, in another normal day with each house appliance fulfilling their routine. Something unexpected happened.

“My boy, you look sick. Well, I mean literally not healthy,” the refrigerator sounded quite concern.

“Emmmm.” The light bulb did not feel like to start the conversation.

“What kind of light is it today? Purple? That is not nice,” the iron, or Mr. Teasmade, as the light bulb typically referred to him, was a bit unhappy, saying slowly.

The light bulb looked around and realized the root of the problem. He was glowing purple!

Oh Jesus! Oh God! Oh, hell no! Something must go wrong with me! The light bulb suddenly felt helplessly cold and anxiously hot.

“Son,” the washing machine speaks with the usual low but powerful voice, “It will be just fine.” But this time, the voice just could not halt the avalanche of the anxiety of the purplish light bulb.

The light bulb cried loud and long. So loud that he did not hear any other words from the other three. So long that when he finally awakes from the tiredness of crying, it was the later half of the second day. When he finally awakes, the light was still purple, but this time, he was tired of even trying to cry.

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“Any better now?” the iron started first.

“We were very concerned about your mental being,” the refrigerator added.

“How could I be mentally good with such physically imperfection like this, like you?” the light bulb shouted aloud and instantly regrated saying the last two words.

“Son, such imperfection is fine.” (A full stop) “You can still get the job done.” the washing machine said, “We house appliance in 60s were not built smart or very easy to use but built functional. We three were born with so many physical imperfections. My rolling bucket was not fully balanced; thus, with this many years’ wear and tear, it sounds terribly noisy.”

“I do not have any smart temperature sensor, and only use two different metals to tell the temperature. Unfortunately, one of the metals was copper, and the basement environment does not favor the preservation of the copper. Thus, I am growing insensitive of temperature.” the refrigerator added.

“My experience resembles the refrigerator’s to some extent. Quite a few holes on my belly were block by the rust and deposit from tap water. Gone are the good old days.” the iron talked with some extra sadness.

“Son. Don’t be so sad.” the washing machine talked again, “I know it is suffering to see the previous, glorious perfection leave you behind. But sooner or later, this is always the case. You need to take it and live with it.”

“Take it easy. It is common and fine to be anxious, angry, and helpless, facing such dramatic sudden change. Cry loud if you want to. Express it.” The refrigerator followed the washing machine’s words.

The silence followed.

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Author’s statement

The story begins at where it begins here. It is a story in the contemporary world with only one key difference, that is the house appliances talk. However, the silence at the end of the passage is not the end of the story. It was cut there for words limit. The original plan was to describe the interaction between the house owner and the malfunctional light bulb. The house owner would take down the light bulb. The light bulb was dropped into bin, leaving a crack on the surface and mentally broken. At night, inspired by those imperfect old house appliances, the house owner dreamed of his old memory of being rejected from important position in an ideal chemistry lab because of not being able to write the perfect report of the findings. The next day when he woke up, he found himself a bit sad, a bit angry and most importantly having sympathy on the imperfect light bulb. He rushed out just before the recycling track arriving at his doorway to pull the light bulb out of the bin. The moment the house owner touched the light bulb, he felt his memory, partially pulling the light bulb back from mentally broken. Later that day, he reinstalled the light bulb back and promised to himself not to throw it away again. However, even through months and years of recovering from such experience and trying to forget, there was always some kind of crack that would not heal.

My intended audience are children between age 5-8 with target wordcount below 2000. This probably belongs to the Easy Reader group. I feel like my story may fall in the same category as the Harriet the Spy, or Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret in terms of the complexity of the plot. However, this story has less wordcount then those. In terms of my writing process, I learned that simply starting writing may sometime be more efficient then thinking and plotting before writing, because trial and error may save time then preventing the unforeseeable errors. The current problem I am facing is that my plot may not be trivial enough for this age group and my wordcount may not be enough for the upper tier. This may be a topic to work on for the future. Also, I did not condense the part of light bulb discovering the problem with the light, because I think it is necessary to use this part to show case the warmth of the old house appliances, thus enriching their characteristics.

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This is a little story written by me for my LIT class. May not be excellent, but I thought it is still worse the share.