The Man Who Sold Lightning

Parker was a con man—a real good one, too—but he never expected the con to turn on him.

He met a guy in a New Orleans dive bar, an old-timer with eyes like burnt-out stars.

“I sell lightning,” the man said.

Parker laughed. “Bullshit.”

The old man grinned and held out a glass bottle filled with something electric, something alive.

Parker bought it for fifty bucks, figuring he’d turn it for a few hundred.

But the first guy he tried to sell it to took one look, shook his head, and whispered, “You’re fucked, man.”

That night, Parker unscrewed the lid just to see. The bolt hit him square in the chest. When he finally woke up, he was looking out from the inside of the jar.

He was fucked.