Francis always said she was lucky.
Before we started dating, I thought it was a joke, but the more time I spent around her, I
realized it was true. Things just went her way. She never bragged about it, though; I think she
believed if she spent enough time around people, her luck would rub off on them. That’s how I
started spending time with her – asking her to come with me to run errands, study for exams, do
mundane things hoping she’d turn them into something magical and special. And she did.
I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Really, I didn’t.
“Bad luck is serious business, Josie,” she said, her brow furrowed. Snow fell down
around us – soft and slow like huge frills of lace – as we walked, the sky above us singed red at
the edges from oncoming dusk.
“It’s not bad luck,” I replied. “It’s broken.”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me to change your lightbulb.”
“I’ve tried a billion times! Something’s wrong with it. Come on,” I mock-pleaded,
tugging at her sleeve. “You’re good with this stuff.”
“You’re asking me to use my special luck powers on... a lightbulb?” she asked, feigning
annoyance.
“What, you’re really not gonna help?”
“Of course I’m going to help,” she said matter-of-factly, and shot me a smile. In the light
of the blooming sunset and the glowing hardware store OPEN sign, her whole face seemed to
radiate vermillion as she pushed through the door with a jingle and traced her fingers along the
shelves, selecting a little red box that contained a perfect replacement lightbulb.
*
When we returned to my apartment, Francis set up my fold-out stepladder below the
ceiling lamp and stepped onto it. The new lightbulb looked pale and fragile in her palm, like
someone plucked the full moon from the sky and hollowed it out just for her. She placed it in the
socket and began to turn it – carefully, like she was trying to pick a rotary combination lock –
and eventually got it screwed almost all the way in, which is when the power shut off with a
sudden crack and she jumped back, slipping off the stepladder and tumbling to the ground.
“Shit,” I shrieked, my voice a weak spark in the darkness. It was silent – the whole room
was pitch-black and still – until I heard Francis breathing and sighed in relief. “Jesus, are you
okay?” I rushed towards her figure on the floor of the still-dim room. “Did you hit your–“ I
froze.
“I’m ok,” she said groggily. “But my hand – my hand really hurts,” she said, struggling to
sit up from where she’d fallen. Light was returning to the room.
“Francis,” I whispered.
“Maybe I got electrocuted,” she groaned. “It’s like it burns, but it feels numb–“
“Francis. Fran,” Francis shifted her body upright to examine herself for damage. “You–
you’re–“
“Oh my god.” I’d never seen anything like it before. She saw it now – I could tell from
the look on her face, fear, pain, and wonder all at once. Her right hand, the one she’d been using
to screw in the lightbulb, was glowing. Really glowing. The skin on her hand had turned paler
and now appeared thin and shiny, like frosted glass on a shower door, and was emitting light
from its core. The milky yellow light illuminated our chins and noses, wrinkled in shock.
Without thinking, I reached out to touch it, and recoiled immediately at contact – it was
hot. Not burning hot, but too hot to touch. She snapped back too, and instinctively cradled the
hand with her other hand, but immediately winced from the heat.
“Oh god,” she whimpered. “It hurts. Oh my god, it hurts.” As soon as she’d touched her
glowing right hand to her dull, plain left, those fingers too began to take on light. She stood up
quickly, her two hands glowing like twin lanterns, illuminating the living room and casting
unnatural shadows on the walls.
*
In a matter of days, the glow spread throughout her entire body. It shone through
everything she wore. Her cheeks radiated a peachy light, and you could see her scalp through her
hair, the light was so bright.
“I’m home,” I yelled, kicking off my shoes.
“Hi,” she called from the other room. I could always tell where she was, of course.
Because of the glow. “Cold out?”
“Yeah.” I found her sitting by the window, as she often did these days. “Freezing.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“Who?”
“Anybody.”
“Not... really.” She didn’t respond – just kept gazing out the window. I sat before her,
like she was a radiator; the light was unmistakably warm. It felt wrong to use her for light, but
just as wrong to act like nothing was different. I’d asked her a few times, when the glow first
started progressing, how bad it hurt; she always replied, “it’s nothing," with a smile, but I could
see the pain in her eyes. I didn’t know how to ask about it, or talk about it, or fix it. At some
point, I stopped asking.
“I miss them,” she said after a long silence. “Everyone.” I knew when she said everyone,
she meant everyone. She missed everyone in the world; she missed the world itself. Guilt twisted
deep in my stomach.
“Yeah. Me too.”
“You get to see them whenever you want,” she said quietly.
“I know,” I said, never knowing what to say.
*
“Why can’t we tell them?” Francis asked one evening.
“Tell them what?”
“You see me like this,” she said, gesturing to her glowing body, “and it’s fine. Our
friends would understand.”
“I never said we couldn’t tell them. I just said it was a bad idea.”
“Why? It isn’t a bad idea.”
“You know why.”
“I don’t anymore, Josie. I really don’t.”
“Fran...” She avoided my gaze. Her eyes looked sunken and soggy – she’d been crying,
and was fighting hard not to in front of me. “I mean, you can do whatever you feel like you need
to do. But this... this has changed things, Francis.” I stood and began to pace. “The lives we had
before all of this... they’re never coming back. We can’t go back to them. Even if you stop...
glowing... it can’t ever go back to normal. That’s the thing, Francis. If you tell them, they can
never go back, either.”
“Nothing’s different! Just me! I’m the only thing that’s changed,” she said. She was
crying now.
“Everything’s different. It’s not your fault. But everything’s different.” I got up and sat
next to where she was slumped on the floor. I could hardly bear to look at her – but she was
sobbing, so I held her, even though it hurt to touch her.
Francis missed the world. She was always a big part of it – in a way I never was. People
always needed her. I was jealous of that. It never occurred to me before, though, how much she
needed them.
“I can’t feel it, Josie,” she cried. “I can’t feel anything.”
*
For the next week, Francis was silent. I would come and go, and she would gaze out the
window, unmoving, her face blank. Nothing I said seemed to get through to her. Even when I
told her we could tell our friends, I was wrong, they’ll understand, I’m sorry, she said nothing.
Just kept gazing out the window, silent and bright as ever like some distant star.
*
When I got home that night, I didn’t realize at first how dark it was in the apartment.
“Francis?” I approached the living room, figuring this was it, she’d finally decided to
leave; but when I entered the room, lit only by the full moon outside, there she was. In her usual
spot by the window, unmoving, un-glowing, I briefly mistook her stillness for sleep. It was
finally over. Finally, she could go out into the world again – see our friends, her parents,
strangers, everyone. Finally, she could do more with her days than give off light. Finally, her
skin was skin again, her body was flesh and blood. I could hold her and know that she could feel
it, and that nothing hurt anymore.
But I was wrong. As I approached her, a chill washed over me, like headlights passing
over a cluster of trees. I had never seen anyone look so cold. So hollow. Her skin had no color to
it at all – it was murky and thin, with nothing inside, like an old plastic bag left out in the rain.
She was slumped there, her eyes dark and empty, her mouth hanging open, no breath coming in
or out.
She was gone. Not somewhere else – not even dead – just gone. Burnt out.
*
A week later, I walked into the living room, set up the stepladder below the ceiling lamp,
removed a new replacement bulb from its box, and screwed it in. It lit up without a flicker of
hesitation.