I've eaten in New York. I've slept in New York. I've shopped in New York. Even been electrocuted by a girlfriend in New York. Not intentionally, no electric iron thrown in the bath, or a cunningly rewired light switch. None of that: all natural, straight from the source - static electricity. Something about Manhattan - that crazy energy, eh - got the two of us literally sparking. We could n't go anywhere, do anything, without an opening fireworks display. Hold hands - zap ! Pass a shopping bag over - pow ! Swap newspapers - zing ! All the time: snap, crackle, pop. I felt quite a kinship by the end of our stay with those neon blue, buzzing insectocutors you see in the prep areas of restaurants. Those things are always fizzing. Bubbling with volts. Just like us on that trip.

The highspot of our unplanned lightshow came one evening when both of our lips were momentarily singed by an arcing zip of electricity.

Is New York a static electric hotplate (though, it's not as if either of us were lovers of nylon clothing)?

My reading on static electricity leads me towards to something to do with NYC's geology as the likeliest explanation. Only time in my life I can ever say I've been a powerhouse, and very green too.

Then again, had the two of us inadvertently communed with a darker, more elemental force? Who knows what we might have seen if we had ever bothered to open the fridge in the apartment. Remember what Sigourney Weaver saw in Ghostbusters when she pulled open the fridge door...that smoking, frothing pit...