The meep of the alarm dragged me from the warmth of my quilt cocoon and smack into Monday morning. I had to bat at it four times before it finally stopped and I found my glasses. 6:00 A.M. and still ... [+]
M.R. Lehman Wiens is a Pushcart nominated writer and stay-at-home dad living in Kansas. His work has appeared, or is upcoming, in F(r)iction, Consequence, The Wild Umbrella Literary Journal, and elsewhere. He can be found at lehmanwienswrites.com. "Pulse" is in Short Circuit #16, Short Édition's quarterly review.
You stare as the fence silently pulses, ready to shock curious sheep away. The pulse gives them time to retreat, to let go. If the power was continuous, you and the sheep would be stuck, glued to the fence until your muscles fried into meat. Stay within your pasture, the wires say. You reach out a trembling hand.
There's a split second before the crack of electricity, one where your brain thinks that the live wire wasn't live at all, and then the current is pulsing through your fingers, your arm, leaping from cell to cell, hungry for the ground. It grapples with every muscle it finds, wrenc