The Magic at the Top of the Streetlamps
There are certainly things operational in the world, the universe, time and everything, that we just do not understand, and probably are not even beginning to comprehend. Things such as "luck," which concept makes some people angry, and others sworn believers, but nobody understands.
Something akin to luck is the "magic" at the top of the streetlamps, a phenomena that has been with me since I was about 21 years old or so. Perhaps it has been around longer, but I think that is when I began to notice it, and wonder about it.
I know it happened most when I was riding my motorcycle at night, I'd notice a streetlamp winking out as I passed beneath it. Odd coincidence, that. Granted, I believe streetlamps are set on time intervals, and possibly heat sensors, to switch off occasionally, and then switch back on later. At least this is what I've always assumed. I've jokingly wondered if some field about me was burning out the filament in the streetlamps (but I've never thought this to be the actual case) (but then again, I've never sat around waiting for one to come back on). However, occasionally, I have witnessed streetlamps coming back on as I passed beneath them.
There have been a few occasions where up to three lights have come on, timed so that they ignited just as I passed from the darkness of the last light going out to the exact moment I passed beneath the next light in line, three lights going out, just like that, blink, blink, and a blink.
Of course, some people will leap forward with: "Careful! It is demons! Demons are doing that, just to yank your chain!" That is possible, and I've considered it. But if so, it is just as possible that benevolent angels could be the culprits as well...
...um, but to what end? What does it all mean? Just as the massed coincidences have abounded about me, so this magical seeming phenomenon of lights winking out as I pass beneath. I have spent some time considering the possibilities, foremost being that it must be just simple coincidence, that there is absolutely no meaning in it, that it is just an ongoing fluke.
I think it has been most prevalent, this magical phenomenon, when I have been most productive in my creativity, when I have been writing the hardest, when I have been actively pursuing art, concentrating, focusing, enacting my gift. And I suppose then that I have always viewed the phenomenon as beneficent, of kindly disposition, as a somewhat supernatural encouragement to keep going, keep fighting, soldier on, never give up, all of that (always realizing that I could be completely wrong).
Because bad things have as well grouped about the increase of the magic at the top of the streetlamps. The times I have had severe traffic accidents, it was always at the peak of one of these streetlamp winking spells. But then again, often there has been no culmination to the phenomenon, nothing bad, nothing tragic, or anything super swell as well. Just, you know, life as usual.
I have learned nothing from the magic at the top of the streetlamps. I have won no lotteries, have never met the woman of my dreams beneath one of the winking lights, have never epiphanied a great story idea, it is just something that I've felt to be somewhat encouraging, a friendly arm about the shoulders, and whisper in my ear: "Hey, it's dark outside. But don't give up. Keep going."
I have had long dry spells where no streetlamp has winked at my passing. And honestly, I can't say that I have missed it, my friend at the top of the lights. But then when it happens again I instantly come awake, and wonder, I wonder why, and what, and I begin to look for it again, and usually it begins to spring up again.
No, I cannot make it happen. I have concentrated, as everyone has at some point, to try and make something happen with my supercharged noodle, but nothing has ever occurred due to my "brain waves." I make no claims to powers or abilities.
It is just a very weird regularity in my life, for the past 25 years. I've worked the phenomenon into my stories. I even began a novel that featured it, back many years ago (and sadly, due to the forward progression of computers, I doubt I'll ever be able to access the big ole floppy disks on which the story resides, quietly in its magnetic patterns, all these years, quietly waiting, yearning to leap out and get back up to the tops of the streetlamps).
All Stories © 2009 Douglas Christian Larsen
