Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is episode 6, for Sunday the sixth of October 2024.

Titration

by Elizabeth Guilt

After the earthquake, shorn power conduits shook and writhed until downtown was flooded with electric. Dirty, unaligned electric - no use to anyone, and lethal. The council set up cordons, and tried to explain they couldn't clean up yet. Couldn't plan operations until they knew the Wattage.

Which is where I come in, with my suitcase of ghosts. It works, and science guys hate it. Electric and ghosts don't mix - lit rooms give spectres no corner to hide. So I just let 'em out, one at a time, until there's enough to be visible.

37 ghosts. That's 14 TeraWatts.

You're welcome.

There is an idea, which I've heard a few times though I haven't been able to find out whose it was originally, that electricity killed ghost stories. Once rooms were well lit, people stopped seeing ghosts.

I like the idea that the ghosts are fighting back.