Hunting The Children of Electric

You may think we’ve harnessed electricity but don’t be fooled by its compliance, it’s merely an angry beast straining at its leash, longing to be free.

 If you’ve stood watching for the crackle-flash of its untamed brother, then counted and listened for the rumble, you’ll know what I mean when I say, the effect of that wild, white-blue, flicker of unmatched brightness is terrifyingly exciting.

Muted by clouds rolling across the air, it might expand into arc-light and tint the earth below, or casually hurl jagged blades, bright as electric spears, down from the shadowy sky. In either form, such lightning hints of voltage, caught up in brilliant crystalline shards of molten heat, driven by fierce winds of ether.

How can you not be fascinated by such power?

Yet, those hoping to capture its vitality should know this is still a tamer breed. Sheet or forked it’s both the same, just happening on mismatched sides of clouds. 

Me, I hunt the rainbowed spheres of netted power generated by massive thunderstorms.

Some call them ball lightning, foo fighters, or St Elmo’s fire, but they are, in reality, those, elusive, children of electric that float in fickle, fuzzy, gemstones of rotating energy.

They follow no path, break all the rules and are tantalizing in their omnipotence.   

The small, pea-sized, ones that sometimes tumble down a chimney or slip through a window and mesmerise you, are easy to bottle.

I have shelves filled with over a hundred, incandescent, flasks of them.

The fist-sized variations of dappled orange need more careful handling and of course are better stored in barrels.

Although both varieties have been known to pop inside their containers, like over stimulated champagne, they are generally safe to handle, but the rarer, larger, ones, those as big as your head, well they’re trickier to deal with.

 I know because I’ve been teased, taunted, scorched and beaten backward by their touch, several times, when I’ve encountered them.

Their danger crackles hungrily, tingling the senses, luring you with beauty and calling to you with seductively singed tones. They seek to prickle your skin with hot fingers and can lift your hair with static or just as easily blacken your flesh and send you into oblivion.

Such treasures are gloriously flashing balls of fettered fire, shining with yellow filaments, or sparking red teardrops of flame. They are able to float and hang as potent orbs, or dart and hover like fat dragonflies, trailing a sulphurous tang of electrical power.  Explosive, and naturally resonant, with unbridled crack-snap heat, they can burn wood, bend metal, dance through pylons and devour the power lines of their more subdued sibling.

I have learned, for these priceless beauties, you must counteract their primal force with a mossy earth-lined cage of filigreed and charm cast stone.

You also need nerves of ice, a steady hand and, please excuse the pun, lightning reflexes.