A Lightbulb's Life
It was the beginning of the end. Or was it the end of the beginning? He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. All he wanted was to break out of this white, fluorescent room. Pacing the perimeter was getting old fast, and he was going to escape now, even if what lay afterwards was worse. His veins popped out of his gray, wrinkled, rotting skin as he reached out and snatched the pristine phone off the pristine floor. He hated this pristine place; it was a constant reminder about his less than pristine life.
Shaking his thoughts away, his muscles led him to dial the familiar number.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
He only had one chance at this; if he messed up, he would be gone. The single lightbulb hanging delicately above him taunted him as it danced to the music of the phone’s ringing.
Ring. Riiiing. Riiiiiiiiing.
What would he say? “I’m sorry”? No, that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t cover the extent of damage he dealt her all those years ago.
Ring. Riiiing. Riiiiiiiiing.
No, he had to come up with something else. Something that would make her forgive him. A shiver caressed his body as he thought about what would happen if he didn’t succeed. One chance. That was all he had.
The phone stopped ringing. A sharp breath filled his lungs. Now was the moment that would decide his fate.
“The number you are trying to reach no longer exists—”
The lightbulb exploded, and he was gone.
It's clear that the lightbulb is a kind of penalty for failure. In my view, it's a self-imposed one. Like sometimes when we come short of our own expectations of ourselves we scold ourselves, I think in the same way the protagonist had made a choice to not try again if he failed, and the destruction of the lightbulb could signify that he gave up.
But that's just what I think of it. Really interesting story!