Wednesday, 6 December 2017

A Gift from Saint Nicholas

Excerpt from "The Adventures of the Four Ostrogoths"

I was watching TV. Together with the Bulgarian. My wife. The match is hot. And extremely important. “Steaua” (a Romanian football team) was playing against a famous team. Whose name I do not recall. When Hagi was preparing to score a goal worth millions, the telephone started twanging and bouncing on the table.
Wanting to witness the marking of the first point, I did not pick up the receiver. On the field – terrible squash, a real madhouse. When our boy kicked the ball, the ovations in the stadium went wild, causing the resonance to amplify. My windows, my glass of water and the TV screen were vibrating. And then I started screaming too, enthusiastically grabbing the receiver.
Gooooaaal! Goooaal!... One to zero for us! And zero to one for the wretched. Serves them right, dallying and kicking in the legs of our players... .’

But the device continued to ring, making my ears hurt. Startled, I carefully examined what was it that I grabbed. It was the reading lamp. Metallic and rather out of order. It was in its shade that I had expressed my satisfaction. When I put it back to its place, it electrocuted me just fine. Howling in pain and fretting, I disperately pulled the lace. The plug went out of the socket, releasing a beautiful blue flame. And some smoke. But in the next second, everyting was in order. I was alive. And had no electricity. Because all the fuses were burnt. I rapidly replaced them with a piece of clothes line and in a few moments electricity was back. And, in a few moments afterwards, the central lighting panel was out of order. But I fixed everything in a breath. Changing a fuse with a nail. Of five millimetres. And then the electricity was back on!

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