The Nerve

Cables entangle before me. I must check for anything out of the ordinary — any block to the current’s flow.

The entire five-storey apartment stands in darkness.

The switchboard lies on the floor. I dismantled everything to get a closer look at the wiring.

I don’t understand — not the cables, but the betrayal.

I’ve tried to see things from every angle, but it’s like going in circles.

A cat chasing its tail.

A snake intending to bite itself.

Why does it have to be me, over and over again, nursing wounds of betrayal?

They said, Choose yourself. I did.

Don’t take shit from anyone — I did that too.

Yet this painful lesson keeps showing up, like the sun in the east.

Right on time.

I spot a loose cable, disconnected from the circuit breaker. It doesn’t look like it was ever screwed in properly.

I reach for my tester screwdriver — red light. There’s current.

In this building, there’s a welder on the ground floor whose setup is a little different from the other tenants.

He’s the one who called management. Said his machines were stalling — low voltage. Production stalled.

Still, I don’t trust the look of this cable.

Something tells me I should fix it before something bad happens.

Which — in my world — is the norm.

You trust someone, they take that trust and use it like a rug.

I mean... I don’t understand.

Why is it that humans can be so cruel? So demonic?

Sometimes I think demons and angels are just us — people.

The good and bad apples from the same basket.

It’s not that we’re numb. We feel everything — vividly, even.

But everyone pretends to be a robot, executing societal norms for the benefit of... who, exactly?

The problem isn’t in this switchboard. It must be underground, in the basement.

The floor plans from the office show two switchboards.

This one’s clean. No anomaly.

The thing about electricity? It’s dangerous.

Just like emotion.

If you don’t do what it wants — it will mess you up in ways you can't imagine.

This is my third decade dancing with death.

Playing with a thousand volts like a child learning to laugh.

Next to the switchboard is a lever — the main switch. I pull it down.

The current dies. Silence.

I hold the loose wire in my hand.

Funny how, just a second ago, it could’ve killed me.

Why can’t I turn off a switch in my head the same way?

Forget the pain. Be numb. Be blind to all that was done to me.

They say we choose our battles.

That every morning — every rise from partial death — we choose what to feel.

Pain or pleasure. Joy or rage.

That no one else can choose for us what we experience in this world.

But it’s hard. It’s hard to accept that she did this to me. Not after everything I gave her.

I gave her lungs. Arms. A life. I gave her my life.

And this—this is what I get in return?

I know what anger does to a man. It doesn’t whisper.

It rips through you like a voltage surge— no fuse, no warning.

I’ve lashed out before. Like lightning. Impulses surfing the bloodstreams of my body, hands trembling— sometimes throwing themselves into the wind, not caring where they land. But I don’t deserve this. This is me we’re talking about. I’m a man. I react. I respond.

And when I’m triggered— there’s no telling what might burn.

Volcanoes don’t pour lava like tea from a flask. They spill. Everywhere. Whatever gets scorched, gets scorched.

I’ve known about my anger from the start. That tremble in my fingers? That invisible quake in my jaw? When it starts, I move away. I don’t run. But for her safety—and mine— I disappear.

I go silent. I go far.

But women… they never see that.

They’re like loose wires— mouths sparking off. Always talking. Always stripping people down with their sharp tongues.

There’s a drip nearby. A tap, somewhere, isn’t closed right. Maybe it’s the one above the rainwater drain. It’s been raining all week, and every leak needs immediate fixing.

Cold seeps in quick around here. People aren’t used to freezing. Electricity has become the new sun when dusk sets in.

I check the cables again. Tightened them all. But better be sure. I pull the lever up. Red dots blink—again. So many of them.

My eyes settle on the circuit breaker I just adjusted. I take my tester, check the tail end.

Red light.

Current confirmed.

There’s probably a thousand volts running through that copper thread. Touching it bare-handed

would send them all through me. One wrong move, and— gone.

I stare at the web of wires— how they’re all connected in parallel to make sure every unit in this block gets power. And I wonder— what if humans had switches too?

What if, when things got too much— when emotions threatened to drown or burn— we could just… turn it off?

No more joy. No more grief. No more betrayal.

Just nothing.

It all comes down to a decision, doesn’t it? A choice. And the courage to follow that choice to the end.

I made the decision years ago—back when we needed the money—that I’d play with electricity. I didn’t like it at first.

The idea of being electrocuted used to terrify me. I couldn’t even entertain it. But life kept getting harder. It clawed at me, gnawed through me. Fear had to take a back seat. Survival didn’t leave room for second thoughts.

Three decades down the line, I’ve never once been electrocuted, not even touched a live wire.

Call it luck. Call it caution. I’ve managed to dance with death without letting it lead.

But what if… what if I wanted to know how it feels?

What if I let the current in—let it sweep through me like a flood bursting through a dam?

Would it be like that first deep drag of tobacco—lungs filling, the dizzying headrush softening the edges of everything, vision flickering as the heart scrambles to keep order?

Or would it feel like being drunk? When the world blurs just right, and the heart stops keeping score—when you float, smile at strangers, and give yourself a quiet pat on the back for being decent in a world that rarely is?

I wonder.

The red light on the tester is still on, glowing like a soft warning—or an invitation.

It stares at me, dares me, beckons me to switch something off—not just on the board, but inside me.

A switch in the heart. In the mind. Something that might make me feel better. Or nothing at all.

She didn’t have to do it that way.

If she was unhappy—if she truly felt ignored, unseen—she could’ve said so.

I’d have let her go. Let her live the life she wanted, on her terms.

Instead, she left me here with silence and shadows, hollowed out.

Nights swallowed by thought—by self-blame and confusion.

Maybe this is my portion.

Maybe this is the path carved out for me.

To spend decades mastering fear, working carefully, keeping death at bay— only to stage my own accident.

Quick. Clean. Quiet.

The kids are grown now. They have their jobs, their partners, their lives. No one would really notice I’d gone. Not for long.

Looking back, I lived well. I loved, and I was loved—when it counted.

I carried my weight with a steady back and honest hands.

I didn’t flinch.

I showed up. Paid the bills. Gave sweat and skin to make sure everyone could face the world on their own terms.

I still have strength. But what’s the point of carrying it if she doesn’t want to see me anymore?

Somehow, she’s turned the kids too—made it feel like I was the villain.

But I also had dreams. I wanted more.

Being an electrician wasn’t in them. But it was steady. It asked for my youth, and I gave it without question.

Because I believed I was building something solid.

Something worth it.

Turns out, I was wrong.

She said she felt trapped. That I controlled her choices.

That I never kept my promise to take her around the world.

And if she could do it all over again—she wouldn’t choose me.

Thirty years.

Gone.

I pull the tester away and stare at the red insulation covering the copper wire.

At the point where it feeds into the circuit breaker, there’s a small gap. Just enough to slip a fingernail through.

Or to touch the screw.

And let the dark take me.

My heart beats faster.

What’s stopping me from going back to where I came from?

It’s just me here. And a dripping tap.

No one would know. Everyone would assume it was just an accident.

But would she cry?

Would she feel anything at all—or would she be somewhere on a cruise ship with Bradley, sipping champagne and laughing under a Maldivian sky?

I still remember her face when she told me about the affair.

Flat. Empty. Like it didn’t even matter anymore.

Anyway…

I have a job to do.

Wires are the only thing that still make sense.

The rest?

I don't understand anymore.