A Flick in the Murk

I stumbled across an old, discarded incandescent exit-sign bulb half-buried in gritty mortar dust behind an electrical riser. Its thin filament was still intact, a fragile curly wire suspended inside clear glass. That delicate neatness was begging to be ruined. Wedging the brass screw-base tight between two rusty cinder-block anchors, I pinched an abandoned steel paperclip into a taut hook. With both skeletal hands, I levered the wire back against an exposed bracket until it shuddered with strain, then let it whip free. Ping! The wire snapped cleanly against the glass, instantly shattering the delicate filament into a tiny cloud of sparkling gray powder inside the intact bulb. What a lovely, quiet little ruin.