Ursula the Wire

This little tale begins with a little piece of power cord, and she happened to be a “she”, and to have a name. And it was Ursula the Wire. One day, a young lovely girl was walking home from a completely pleasant day at school when she tripped over Ursula the Wire. By some strange coincidence, as the girl fell to the ground, Ursula the Wire wrapped around her throat and, as an unnecessary aftereffect, strangled her to death.

Ursula the Wire was personally harrowed by this not particularly pleasant event, and she would be guilty over it for a very long time afterwards. Nevertheless, as she was strangling the poor, young, lovely girl to death, it seemed to her that it was the most proper thing in all the world to do.

She was humming, even, in the only way power cords like her hummed while strangulating to death innocent young girls.

It was exactly five seconds after the poor girl was dead did Ursula the Wire realize that a human being had died, and that she was partly responsible for it. It was also about the same, exact time that she felt less good about her earlier actions—that is, strangling a person to death—and started thinking about it for a change.

© Jay Santos 2003.