MY NAME IS ERG AND I AM IN CHARGE!

My name is Erg, but you can call me EM, short for ELECTRO MAN!

I've been wired since I was a mere

spark in my parent's energy flow.

There was a lot of in-fighting when my charge first snapped into life. My grandparents,

Sixty and

Forty Watt, wanted me to be named in the family tradition, but my dad,

AC Current, literally flipped a

switch over that. Mom,

DC Mother Board, tried really hard to get them all to name me

Candle Wyke.

You should have seen the

bolts of raw power my grands sent out into the night sky over that one! I hear tell they shut down three-quarters of the Northern United States and half of the whole of Canada too. When Sixty, that's grandpa, gets

frazzled, he does cut a wide path across the

ether waves.

In a way I feel lucky. EM is so much better that what my sister got. I mean how does a female sparkler live up to being called

AMPS? All through school, the other currents tormented the devil out of her by adding  the G-R to the front of her name. It still burns her circuits every time someone calls her GRAMPS.

Most of us survive the static zing of childhood torment by reverting to intials, hence my being EM. I have a cousin who goes by "CB". No, his initials have nothing to do with

Citizen Band radio, though he did get relentlessly slammed with that all through

Cumulo-Nimbus High.

His real name is

Circuit Breaker, and although conservation of energy is honorable amongst our kind, other jolts of charge do not hestiate to tease, just like you human kids tend to tease and torment each other.

Oh hey, I'm not here to give you a bolt by bolt play on our species' momentary

fire crackings. I'm here to talk about Elliott Blakely and my role in his pursuit throughout L. J. Holmes'

IN FROM THE COLD, of the comely

Mari Donovan.

I've known Mari, well, forever! I was already firmly intermingling with the cabin Blakely bought back a ways. I remember

Hector and the feel of his gnarled skin upon my smooth young self years and years before Hector up and died.

I must admit my home, the well appointed fuse box is in the rear of

the cabin, so I was not a first hand witness to Mari jumping Elliot's bones. Man, what a sight that musta been. I had to hear about it from that stuck up bunch of bones, the moose antler trophy!

Let me tell you, those antlers need to be taken down a peg or two! Seriously! Their original owner had to

die AND be stuffed to turn them into a trophy...where I have been a sparkling powerhouse since my parents first

 crossed their wires! But those dumbass antlers act like they are the only part of the cabin that matters. I'd like to see them rub their forces together and create

LIGHT!

OOPS! I did it again.

Back to Elliott and Mari. If I keep this up I'm gonna end up with a bad case of the

frizzes.

I don't know why Mari jumped Elliot's bones. As far as I can figure, she never jumped Hector's bones. I doubt she was even tempted, but jumping Elliot's bones certainly did liven things up around here.

Once the bone-jumping bit happened, Mari just about dropped off the

face of the mountain. Oh I did see her, from a distance every so often, during the months prior to the bone jumping. When my new owner was gone from home, Mari'd slip out of her place, head high into the mountains and return long before he got back, her

wheelbarrow teeming with newly cut

wood logs.

But after the bone-jumping...

The shutters were closed ALL the time, and the wheelbarrow remained sequestered in the

tool shed.

I am not an eavesdropper, normally, but since parts of my life's blood travels through the cabin's

wiring system, I couldn't help but pick up on Elliott's increasing angst over Mari's disappearance.

When I was a little live-wire, I heard human

bone-jumping is a lot like taking two of our exposed wires, letting them touch and watching the sparks zing about: hard to resist.

Elliott was certainly acting like a guy who needed his zing back.

I don't honestly know how he figured out the best way to get that zing crackling, he's not the most...adept at house stuff...but "Holy Burn My Britches, Human" oooh what he did!

Oh My will you look at the time!

Sorry I can't stay long enough to tell you all about it. I guarantee it'll make your own circuitry go

"tilt-tilt-tilty-woohoo!"

But I got to get back to my box before Elliott gets home. Now that he knows who we are and

what we are, it's best he not learn how easily we travel.

Anyway, I had a real

charge talking with you. If you want to know more, well, L.J. Holmes wrote a comprehensive report on it all. It'll be available this coming June from

Muse It Hot Publishing.

And now I really must hop, skip, and sizzle my way back home.

Happy Sparking Everyone!

EM has left in a frying rush, but he left his business card behind.

He can be found prominently in IN FROM THE COLD available in June 2011 from

Muse It Hot Publishing as recorded by

L.J. Holmes, and...

CUT!

Great Interview everyone. What a whizz!