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The lamp on your desk isn't powered by electricity. What turns it on?

"I'm telling you, it isn't plugged in to anything," I say to my mom over the phone.

"Well, sweetie, it's probably run on batteries then."

As though I hadn't thought of that. I had just moved into a new apartment in a new city and there was this confounding desk lamp. "Revolutionary, Mom. You think I didn't check for that?"

"There is no need to get so testy with me."

I sighed. She was right. It wasn't her fault that this lamp had become the manifestation of all of my stress from the past few days. Everything was just slightly off in this new city. The grocery store was arranged just differently enough to make me circle it several times to find what I was looking for. The way the public transportation card worked was just different enough to make me look like an idiot while trying to get on and like I was trying to skip out on a fare when trying to get off. And then there were the rules about dogs in the city. I still couldn't tell you when I'm allowed to have my pet with me. "Sorry, Mom. I just need to figure this out. Okay?"

"Okay. Maybe it's solar?"

My mom was always so patient with me. She really wanted to help. Maybe she could tell I had been having a bad few days. "That's not a bad idea." I turn the lamp over a few times, looking for little solar panels that could power it. Of course, I found nothing. "Nope, I don't see any panels."

"Maybe it's a crank?"

"Are you messing with me? What things operate on a crank?" I reply a bit too angrily.

"Didn't you have a flashlight that worked with a crank? I feel like we got you one when you went on that backpacking trip."

She was right. She was somehow always right. "Oh, right. Let me look." I searched all around the lamp for a crank in case this was some bizarre lamp that people wanted to operate via crank, but also that stayed powered long enough from the previous tenant to drive me crazy. There was no crank. "No luck, mom. What else powers lamps?"

"Fire?"

"Okay now I know you're messing with me."

"Well I'm not suggesting this lamp is just an open flame, but you asked what else powers lamps. There are plenty of lamps that are flames."

I sighed again. "You're right, you're right. But no, this one does have a bulb of some kind."

"Well is it your power?"

Oh. My. Gods. How had I not thought that? The previous tenant was also probably gifted and used this to focus her power. My power got agitated when I was and I had been more than agitated the past few days. At least my training was holding enough to not explode the lamp and just light it up. "What would I do without you, mom?"

"Apparently not be able to turn a lamp off."

We both laughed for a moment.

"I know working for the new high wizard is stressful, my dear, but you will be okay. Now just focus and you will be able to turn the lamp off.

I took a deep breath and centered my powers. Sure enough, the lamp turned off. "I did it!"

"Congratulations!"

"Now hopefully I can figure you the rest of my new life."

"First the lamp, then the world."

(Prompt by me)
Photo by M-J.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nightstandlamp.jpg

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