The Air was Electric
Editor's note: Sorry I have a weird sense of humour when it comes to comedy or a bad one which ever *shrug* just a random thought I had of the FMA crew when they were older. I know I suck T-T for making Ed and Winry have kids. Please review every criticisms helps me to improve ^-^.
It was four weeks before Christmas if memory serves me right. The houses on our avenue were already stacked high with Christmas decorations almost kissing the sky. It made the star of Bethlehem look like a tiny little firefly compared to the building lights of our new found Las Vegas.
Competition was high and feelings were running higher in the race for the brightest creation in Tackyville(the new name Uncle Al had christened the place on his last visit). Our new neighbour's had brought a whole new dimension to outdoor decorating and their Dad Roy had done it all himself to boot. For some strange reason my Dad and Mr Mustang never seemed to get along. Like chalk and cheese my Mum would always say to me when describing the men's relationship. My Dad's brother Al who was always handy with his hands always came and did the lighting for us but he was ill with a stomach bug he had caught from eating one of Miara Ross's angel surprises last week. I'm guessing that was the surprise.
It was now the second week of December. Compared to everyone else our house looked to be in virtual darkness. We were not happy to say the least. To make things worse we were driving into the driveway when one of the kids from next door asked my Dad why he hadn't put up any lights with a smug smile pinned across his face. Dad snapped back that he was doing it at the weekend himself. My Mum froze in the seat. I hadn't seen such dread in her face since Dad tried to worm the poor dog. Den still avoids going near my Dad to this day. Mum pleaded with Dad that he couldn't be serious but that seemed to make him more determined.
"Come on how difficult can it be?" he asked
"For crying out loud Winry, there are only three wires" My Dad scoffed raising his eyes to heaven. Any idiot could do it or so my Dad thought.
"Sure doesn't Pinako do it aswell as Al and she's not the sharpest tool in the box"
Mum didn't reply. In fact she didn't speak to him all weekend.
Dad seemed to go quiet now as we got out of the car until my little brother piped up and said with a thrill of laughter
"I bet our house will be the best won't it Dad?"
"Eh yeah, of course..... the best" said Dad
Nothing more was said about it until the Saturday morning, the day we would electrify the avenue. First thing was first, our store of decorations was taken out. They looked great or so my little brother thought. Behind them was another box with wires and plastic boxes with funny looking connections and markings.
"You sure we need all these Dad?"
I raised a concerned eyebrow at him from his crouched position in the corner of the attic.
"Yeah I think so Trisha" he replied
He raised one thin eyebrow at me with a grin Mum said made her go weak at the knees any time she saw it. Uncle Al had them all laid out in sequence until my little brother fell over the bow making our attic floor look like WWIII. Dads stress levels were going up and Mum quietly observed.
Weather wise it wasn't great. It had rained heavily over night giving our driveway a liquid coat and to top it all off it was still very windy. Dad with his rush of blood to the head to be the 'Man' over looked the fact that he had an extreme fear of heights. He was the type to get dizzy by just looking over a sink. After a few attempts to put the ladder up against the wall and a near miss with an upstairs window, Dad started his ascent. His white knuckled death grip look it leave a imprint on each of the rungs of the ladder. More so on the right side but that was probably due to the fact he had an automail arm Mum had made for him. He never did say how he lost his arm or his leg for that matter to myself and my little brother. The higher he got the more religious his mutterings became. Mum warned him to tone it down on more than one occassion. I never saw Dad so indisposed to give a back answer.
We held our breaths and looked skywords as Dad was working at the speed of a lame tortoise fixed the lights to the gutters. I couldn't be sure but I thought I saw fear in Dads eyes when he eventually returned to tearra ferma.. In fairness he had laid out the lights beautifully. The job was going well. Even Mum was starting to be impressed and Den wagged his tail in approval. The only thing left to do for the afternoon session was the connection and turn on. Simple. Dad high on his morning's success confidently surveyed his work to date. His inflated ego (bigger than himself however that wasn't hard to beat) seemed to blind him of the danger of working with electricity. My Mum sensed this and asked him to be careful. As usual being a man he chose to ignore her. Working feverishly he connected every thing and anything that had a hole until he was finally left with just one final connection to the mains. It was too short to reach our outdoor connection so he decided to use our neighbour's just to check out the lights. As he was doing it Mum arrived in from the shops and passed a remark about the wiring.
"What are you doing Ed? You don't put that connection over there you idiot" she exclaimed swinging her shopping bags over her shoulders.
"Of course you do, and who are you calling stupid Winry?"
My Mum withheld her tongue and simply turned her heels and walked off in disgust.
A small crowd was gathering in anticipation of a wonderful show. Mum stayed inside working on her new automail project. We all gather out on the lawn with Roy making some remark on how Dad could have possibly put up all the lights by himself due to height. Something along the lines of
" He's a little man, that's his trouble. Never trust a man with short legs.... brains too near their bottoms"
That sent Dad into a fury of rage it took us twenty minutes of Mr Armstorng holding him back to prevent him making Roy looking like one of those messes Den leaves on the carpet. For some reason Dad has always been the type to over react when it came to his height he should try wearing heels they help I thought.
"Now well show that pompous Mustang who has the best lights here" Dad whispered in a deep sinister tone. I didn't like that sound of that. As I recall it I could see it all happening in slow motion in my minds eye. Dad striding over to the connection box. The people smiling and chattering away. My little brother and Den jumping up and down with excitement. The only disinterested party member in the group was our cat Envy who had taken up position on top of some of the junction boxes. Dad raised the plug to the socket slowly and drove it home. There was a blue flash, the house lit up in a blaze of glory followed by a beautiful pinking sound that ran the length of our house and then our neighbours. It was the sound of the bulbs exploding. The sound was shattered by the screams of the cat who we had unintentionally defibrillulated. The smell of burning cat is still with me to this day. The horror on the faces of the people gathered did not match that on my Mum's face. With a tightly gripped wrench in one and a lightening flash strike Dad was out for the week. To say the air was electric that night would be an understatement. In the post mortem that followed a vital lesson was learned. Blue is neutral and brown is live with one final warning you never mix your colours.
*okay that's it finished I know they don't have cars in Ed's world and the Winry and Edward having kids is an over done story I'm sorry. I do not own any characters of FMA their all Arakawa sensi's. And yes finally I know Edward isn't scared of heights sorry -.-. Thank you for taking the time to read this.