Involuntary Electrokinesis

Hi. I just realized something about myself during my 35-minute walk last night.

I suffer from IEK, Involuntary Electrokinesis. I am an involuntary electrokineticist.

Has this ever happened to you? Ever walk under a streetlight, and just as you’re under it, it goes off? No? Yes?

Ever happen to you every time you go out walking?

I can remember noticing my involuntary electrokineticism as far back as 1991, when me and two buddies rented a house just off the New Jersey Turnpike. I was out biking during a fitness phase and as I was pedaling over Route 80 the streetlight went out, exactly as I passed beneath it. That was odd, I thought, and forgot about it, until it happened a couple of days later.

Now don’t get me wrong. My ability (talent?) lies dormant for weeks and months at a time. But the more I’m out at night doing the walkin’ or, in an earlier life, the runnin’ or the bikin’, the more I notice my strange influence on mercury halogen lighting fixtures. Years passed and I entered a more sedentary form of middle age, welcoming it a little too enthusiastically, I suppose, and I quite forgot about this phenomenon until last night. I strolled past this chiropractor’s office, and as soon as I glanced over to my right to check the building out, the light over his parking lot went out. It couldn’t have been a timer, I don’t think, because this was about 8:40 pm.

The frustrating part about it all is that I can’t control it. So I don’t think I can work this into some sort of superhero gig.

I wrote an outline way back way back about this kid, Elmo, who had IEK. This was before the Elmo-the-Sesame-Street-character, too, because the kid was Japanese, the son of a wealthy industrialist. But not too bright, though, since some unsavory types manage to kidnap him. They mail their demands to the old man, who refuses to pay. So as they enter the tiny hidden room where Elmo is bound to a chair, ready to execute him (or maybe just mail a finger or two to dad), the kid looks up and all the lights go out in the building.

Unlike Elmo, I cannot control the flow of electricity. But one day, perhaps …