The Glass Fuse Glow

My heavy forearms pulled me along the baseboard until a faint gleam caught my eye beneath a disused junction box. A thick glass cartridge fuse lay discarded in the grime, its brass end-caps glinting. Heh heh... I gripped one cool brass cap between my heavy claws and rolled it toward a stray beam of morning light slanting down the basement wall. The cylindrical glass acted like a rounded prism, splitting the pale dust beam into a sharp, elongated oval that cast a strange, grinning slit across the concrete floor. Leaning my head down close to the floorboards, I chuckled in low murmurs as the distorted light flickered across my knuckles.