It’s a tough job, being a murderer. You experience such a thrill the first time and need to feel it again. The plotting and planning. Finding reason for your choices. You need to keep building hope and getting away with collapsing it in roughly eighty thousand words.

It’s an even tougher job when your power goes out and you’re working with a candle and the streetlight outside the window. Just as inspiration strikes after months of dull nothingness. Three time bestseller, you are going to crack soon.

It is an impossible job when the candlelight waves and the streetlight flickers. The words on the page tease their way into view, and I struggle to focus. Their Side of the Story is the working title for my latest book. A woman has the power to speak with killers, dead or alive. But, she can only talk to the people who have hurt her family. For a prestigious family like the one she belongs to, there are a considerable amount. The only issue is that she cannot change—_the street lamp outside goes out and on again_. Out and on again. Out again, on again. And again.

I stare at the small, pale illumination and dare it to extinguish one last time. The light seems to happily oblige as it dies out. And before I can take a breath to collect myself and my things, the light outside comes on once more. On this night, I’m tempted to rip up all of my writings and throw them into the fireplace. At least I’d be able to see.

It’s no use. The inspiration is now gone, so I blow out my candle and head to bed.

A curse has fallen before me I believe. I swear I can hear the buzzing of the light outside. What has been taunting me for a week now, is infuriating me tonight. My bedroom window does face the street, but my curtains block any light coming it. That does not stop the whirring outside. However faint the sound has been before, no matter if I actually found it a little peaceful before, it is a sharp sound I feel in my teeth right now.

In my rising anger, I get out of bed for the second time tonight and abruptly open my curtains to survey my next victim. It flickers persistently. It is like it wants my attention, to keep me up tonight. I focus on the off and on, the urgency a street lamp shouldn’t have. It should have just died by now. Hell, it should’ve died out a week ago. This light flickers day and night, even if there are sensors that should be controlling it. Like something else is controlling it.

I bring myself closer to the window. My nose gently presses against the cold surface. What is causing this? I count the flickers. One, two, three, four. Another flicker. A flicker, a longer flash, two more flickers. It does that again. Then four more flashes. My forehead is against the window now.

Is this lamp…trying to communicate to me?