"What's that sound?" wonders Jonah as he pops his head from underneath his umbrella in the rain. The tap, tap, tap echoing around him makes it hard to focus on the intriguing high, undulating pitch he's been hearing for a few minutes now. With his hair wet and his ears cold, he turns, tuning out sirens, car horns, and chatter until he finally zeros in on the direction of the sound. It's across the street.

As he walks closer, the taps on his umbrella get more frequent and heavier. The high, undulating pitch becomes a screech. Jonah realizes it's coming from a trash bin. “I should mind my own business. What if it's an animal? I hate possums. They’re always drooling and stinking like rotten meat,” he thinks and turns away.

The pitch cycles over and over almost hypnotically. Jonah shakes himself off and thinks of all the opportunities he’s missed throughout his life due to fear. In second grade, he didn’t play with his crush Christina on the swings out of fear he’d fall. She never spoke to him again. He didn’t join the anime club and make friends in high school out of fear they’d think he was weird.

“My fear stops now!” he thinks, turns, walks, and stands directly above the garbage container. He pops a sour gum in his mouth. It's a habit he started doing every time he has to do something important because it's supposed to stimulate blood flow.

Even more focused now, he notices the cycling sounds are joined by waves of light that escape out of the sides of the aluminum lid. When he opens the lid, the screech gets twice as loud, and he sees a device labeled Tesla Electric Co. A knob reads ON and OFF. Below it are the words CAREFUL USE WITH EXTREME CAUTION.

Despite serious apprehensions and the smell of fish from the trash, Jonah picks up the machine and contemplates turning it OFF before putting it in his book bag to take home and investigate further. The lights and sound would attract too much attention.

A voice inside him tells him to leave it. This was obviously left here by mistake. Someone’s going to come looking for it, and you. You’ll be left dead in a sewer, and no one will find your body after the rats and gators swallow you whole, simultaneously. A second voice is begging him to please, for the first time in his life, take a swing. Be an adult and take a risk. A disappointed Christina pops into his thoughts and turns away from him.

“FINE! FINE!” he yells.

He grabs the grooved knob and turns the switch OFF. Unbeknownst to him, every electrical device in the city shuts down.

“Phew,” he rubs his forehead. “That was not as big a deal as I thought,” he says as he tucks the device in his book bag and walks back home, chest high with a grin on his face.

On his way home, the murmur and chatter of people rise steadily. Umbrella-toting pedestrians who were scattered messes minutes ago have converted into clumped masses. He joins the closest one to him.

“What’s the matter?” he asks. A man shrugs, “Power outage, but even battery devices like phones aren’t working.”

“Must be an electromagnetic pulse weapon. We must be under attack by the deep state. Run for the hills," says another person wearing a red hat who runs to a bodega across the street.

“AHHHHHHHHH!” A woman yells and points up to an airplane falling out of the sky, fighting to glide as long as possible. Her church group closes their umbrellas, gets on their knees and prays for God to save the passengers and everyone else in their path.

Jonah remembers the device in his bag. “Did I do this? That's impossible.” Regardless, he rushes to an alley on the same block and turns the knob back to ON. He finds used, wet clothes in a nearby dumpster and swaddles the apparatus tight. His phone rings, but he ignores it as he returns to the crowds.

“Our prayers were answered. The plane gained control again,” says one of the soaked women on her knees as she wipes away tears. Every phone around him vibrates or rings. The masses scatter once again as everyone returns to their phones.

While walking home he wonders, “Hmmmm, wait a minute. Am I a god of lightning now like Indra, controlling electricity left and right? What’s next?” He says and shoots imaginary lightning bolts out of his hands. “Are you crazy!” he yells at himself. “You almost killed people. Wait, you definitely killed people,” he thinks of people on life support and e-car accidents. He grows faint, leans on a rusty fence, and gags.

Jonah finally decides to look at his phone, which has been ringing and leaving notifications since he turned the device back on. A message reads, “We have tracked your location and are on our way to retrieve the device.” He jogs back to the alley and clasps his hands over his head in disbelief as he hides behind a dumpster to throw up and plot the most hidden course back home. A puddle of pee and water beside him forms waves as raindrops disturb its surface tension.

A red light moves across the water as five red dots light up his chest.

“This is the only risk I ever took in my life, and this is how you repay me, fate,” he thinks and laughs nervously. “I deserve this,” he says to himself, gagging, palms to forehead, haunted by the damage he caused moments ago.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

As his vision fades to black, an older version of Christina walks up to him, winks, and says, “Let’s go play.” He grins.