Frank Fisher is nothing. He wants to be something. When a mysterious young woman named Bonnie offers assistance by injecting seeds of inspiration directly into his brain, Frank finds himself involved in a twisting mystery full of addiction, desperation and self-discovery. Broken Bulbs, a novella by Eddie Wright, tells the story of the lengths one young man will go in the pursuit of "somethingness."
Excerpt:
“You know I don’t smoke.” I hold an unlit cigarette in my palm.
Bonnie shoots it a look then locks my eyes, “So?”
“So every time I meet with you, you give me a cigarette, but I don’t smoke and I tell you every time.”
“Put it in your mouth,” she says. Her left eye is blue. The right one is brown. My eyes are coals, burning my brain.
“Your eyes are two different colors,” I say.
“I lost a contact. Here…” She stretches across the table and pops a Zippo at my face. I put the smoke between my nasty teeth and lean the tip into the flame. I take a drag and exhale the mouthful. I hate cigarettes.
“I hate cigarettes. They smell and I hate the way they taste.” “I know. Take a big puff.”
A long pull this time. Bonnie watches me. I know she wants me to inhale every bit. Fill my lungs with the badness. I do. She smiles.
“See, you didn’t even cough that time!” She’s delighted. That’s all that matters.
“Which one?” I ask.
“Which what?” she says as she slides a piece of her dyed, jet-black hair away from her eye and behind her ear.
“Well you should know,” she says.
“How?” I say. I can’t focus on anything anymore. Her face is going blurry, then sharpening, then blurring again. I feel like my face is going to tear from my head.
“I always wear my contacts,” she says as if this statement should be obvious to me.
“Okay…”
“So you should know what color my eyes are all the time.” “Okay…”
“And whatever one that’s there right now, the one that’s not always there, would be the real one.”
