Streetlights Part 1 (fiction)

Once, when she was running along 37th avenue by the park as dusk was falling, all the streetlights flicked on, one after another with a resonating click as she drew near them. She mused that it was fate’s way of telling her to keep on running. It happened a few more times afterwards and, while a little novel, it was really nothing ethereal and was more based on the coincidence of timing her runs with the descent of darkness upon the city.
Just like in the morning, as she trudged along the sidewalk alternatively looking at pink and orange tinged clouds as the sky brightened, or cowering under her umbrella and lamenting that her hair would be starting to curl by the time she arrived at work that morning, the lights along 45th avenue would all click off as they heralded the morning light, dreary though it may be. This too could easily be chalked up timing, to her rather rigid and structured schedule. Surely if she was some sort of wanton artist, some free floating and uninhibited soul she would not experience this so regularly because, say she might be coming home from some wild party rife with stimulating intellectuals at 4am and rising somewhere around noon to meet a client, a publisher, a comrade for coffee in some funky coffee shop in East Van.
Sometimes, oddities would occur. She would be walking down a random street in the dark and the streetlight nearest to her would turn off. The rest would remain blazing, sentinels guarding against an onslaught of murky darkness, but the one in the closest proximity would cease to shed any sort of illumination for her. Given her ongoing history with streetlights, which had heretofore been very positive, she found this sullen refusal to shine somewhat eerie, but mostly irritating.
Once, when she was having a particularly shitty day at work and was scant seconds from throwing her computer out the window, kicking her boss in the nuts and, once he had doubled over in pain and shock, grabbing his pale purple silk tie that went so smashingly with his dove grey suit, which further accentuated his broad shoulders and his overall fit physique, and stapling it to his fucking desk, the power had gone out in the building. She had chosen that moment to go for a lengthy walk, hoping to outdistance the circumference of this mysterious power outage and enjoy a coffee, instead of committing assault on her boss.
And lately, the elevator doors in her lobby had developed the strange habit of opening for her as she came in through the front door. At first she wondered if the strata had some sort of sensors installed, but then decided against it because only one of the elevators ever opened for her, and it did this intermittently. She even spent some time contemplating if, perhaps, the gentleman that she bumped into from time to time on the elevator, who would either compliment her on the run from which she was just heading out to or returning from, or casually mention what suite he was in, was sending the elevator down as he watched her walk up the street to the building. This could maybe explain its arrival and its cavernous, welcoming yawn as she came into the lobby. She ruled it out though, because she had seen him a couple of days ago with a woman that looked like some kind of East Bloc supermodel and he certainly hadn’t mentioned what suite he was in then, as he slung his arm around his beautiful companion who had laughed with one hand clasped over her mouth at something that he had said while bemusedly eyeing her up and down, which made her feel as though she was being judged and therefore immediately regretted her choice of plaid pants (too big), clumpy shoes and ill-fitting sweater. The ensemble had seemed attractive in her mind as she mulled it over in the shower that morning, but its effect had been more pathetic than edgy, and her English muffins had taken too long to crisp so she hadn’t been able to remedy the situation before heading to work.
Other interesting electrical happenings on the negative spectrum were also occurring, but she chalked them up to bad luck. A streetlight can only do so much: it can turn on, and it can turn off. But her car battery could easily be dead, and it was on a night that she was supposed to meet her boyfriend for dinner. She had a bus pass, so it was quite easy to text him and advise that she was running late (it had been while walking to the bus stop that one of the streetlights had turned off in her presence and it was that that had given her pause, not the actual dead battery itself). Her cell phone was actually quite new: her last phone had been working rather sporadically and her boyfriend often remarked that he went directly to voicemail and she didn’t seem to be receiving some of his text messages.

I'm sleepy. Will finish this later.