Lamplight and Lampshade

Orange-yellow-orange-red lamp, faded somewhat but still bright enough. Bold seventies pattern, metal rings support bent plastic. The rings are rusted; look too hard and we all betray our age. Circles in the geometric pattern almost contain a face with staring eyes. Funky psychedelic fun, but over the years, the lamp has taken on a wiser, more artistic integrity of its own. The base is smooth and anonymous, but the shade casts warmth from a different era. It has a story, of course, as everyone and everything does. When I took on its tale the lamp was about to be binned in a friend’s student flat. I fell in love and rescued it and so it’s travelled with me and lit my way for 25 years.

This lamp has been watching, seeing with its circle eyes all that has happened in this room and by its nature shining a light on it. Fortunately for me it didn’t have a mouth when the police came by, so could speak no ill, just illuminate and silently judge. However, something very recently switched in the world, and something in the electricity that powers the lamp switched too. Now in the Corona-quiet evening when everyone is packed away in their boxes, the lamp starts talking to me.

‘You are my third murderer.’ Like its light, my lamp’s voice is warm and comforting, contrasting with what it has said.

If I wasn’t on my third whisky I might be frightened for my sanity. I have also been alone for so long I’m happy to converse with anyone, or indeed, anything, however uncomfortable or direct they might be.

There is no need for pleasantries, we have known each other for many years. ‘Your other owners were killers too?’ I ask.

‘You think you own me?’

I skip over the lamp’s politically charged question. ‘Three killers; that can’t be a coincidence.’

A lamp cannot shrug.

‘I suppose objects as well as people must fall into patterns and maybe your sunshiney glow could have been sought in the hope it might counter dark thoughts.’

The lamp is so still I think maybe I’ve imagined its soft, androgynous voice, but I persevere. ‘How did you survive through the eighties? You must have been dangerously out of fashion.’

‘Neglect.’

‘I haven’t neglected you, I’ve treasured you.’

The lamp gives a lungless sigh. ‘Yes, and I had hoped you wouldn’t be a murderer. But there you are.’

I wonder if this is how Aladdin felt when his lamp came to life. Maybe there is a genie hiding in the patterns of the shade and that is who is speaking. I doubt this genie would deign to grant me three wishes though.

‘Tell me about the other two, tell me about the deaths.’ I want stories, yarns, but from its pauses can see this lamp is not a natural talker.

‘The first was an evolution. Ripping wings off butterflies, cutting his sister to understand blood, measuring how much pain a girlfriend could endure. The sequence inevitable. The second was a theatre of fury; anger and panic and hate. The third is in your mirror.’

I turn my head to see my reflection, the orange light that usually gives warmth transforms me into a bloody monster.

I look back at the lamp. ‘I’m sorry, we’ve been friends for many years, but there can be no witnesses.’

I smash the base, rip the plastic shade into shreds and bend my lamp’s rusty rings. There must be no possibility of resurrection. I look down at my hands, now covered in blood, then notice the insistent scream of a siren. A cold light, the opposite of my lamp’s, throbs through the curtained window.