The mounted transformer was left quite a mess. Frayed and blackened sheet metal hung jagged, swaying with the breeze, and the inner coil still hissed and sparked when a volt of electricity managed to pass through. Once high on a pole, the distributor now lay rent on the street, its life ended in a rather violent explosion as a fork of lightning struck it in the night's storm. Two people had gathered before it, behind a small hardware store in the south end of Roxhill.
Vincent sighed. Not even eight in the morning, and I'm already cleaning up dad's messes.
The man beside him, the store's manager, chuckled. "Been here since dark. One of the neighbors figured a bomb went off and called me." Mr. O'neil was a portly man with sad eyes. He was not the most capable of men, but he did not ask much for salary, and Vincent knew he could be counted on to seize certain "opportunities" in customer transactions.
"Don't you have a number to call for this sort of thing?" Vincent asked. "This is the city's job."
"'Fraid not," O'neil said. "They said this one's on your property, so you gotta shell out the cash for it yourself. No power until then."
Vincent sighed again. "I'll call requisitions. Cash only until this gets fixed. You're already low on sales this year, you can't afford a day off. Got it?"
O'neil shrugged. "You know, this doesn't look so bad," he said, moving toward the transformer. "We could probably patch it up for the time being." He crouched down with a grunt, reaching in to grab the coil.
Vincent raised an eyebrow. "What the hell are you-"
There was a flash and O'neil suddenly jerked, his entire body going rigid. He fell to the concrete. The only noise audible was a gentle thump, followed by the whistle of air leaving the man's lungs, his last living breath.
"Are you serious?" Vincent asked the corpse. The only emotional response he could manage was a chuckle at the absurdity.
He did not feel comfortable touching the man's body, nor remaining on the street, and so he quickly removed his phone, dialing for an ambulance while he stepped into his vehicle. The black sports car made its way hastily to Vincent's private estate on Mercer Island, its occupant lost in thought all the while.
This is going to be a nightmare of paperwork. God damn it, and thought this day couldn't get any more tiresome. He tskd irritably, a crease forming in his brow. But something was bothering him, something he tried to mask with trivial thoughts. He had seen men die before, but not someone like that. It was too close to home. Someone that he knew. The man had a daughter, a girl Vincent would have fancied had she not been related to someone so incompetent. How would she feel?
The car took a sudden left turn as Vincent decided not to return home. He needed somewhere else to calm his troubled mind, something closer to nature. A park perhaps, or the beach.