Burnt-out Little Christmas Light

I was beaming a prominent ray of green light into the cold air of a winter night when suddenly.....my ever glowing light flickers and then turns off. I look around to see if it was time to go back into the box for those dreadful eleven months but to my surprise I see the rest of my friends to my right and left still glowing bright. Astonished at what just happened, I shake vigorously in the chilly wind trying to get voltage back into my innards. An imaginary tear runs down my bulb when I realize my time, has come and gone.

I used to be the brightest of the bunch until the time my light bulb sizzled out. My light was always brighter and my life longer..... But now, I hang on the edge of the the window sill waiting until I will be thrown out and replaced. I know now that I had the best life I could have ever imagined... The time I was constructed at the electrician shop........ The thrill I felt the first time my cord was plugged.... How the energy flew through my metal coils...... All the people who stared in amazement at my bright light....... "good times, good times" I think to myself.

In the last few moments of my life, I wait in dread to be ripped off of this long cord and replaced by a much younger and more "efficient" rookie. I knew that I wasn't very energy efficient but who cares?! I was always the brightest and the most easily recognized bulb on the house. The Christmas lights in the house across the street would flash their lights to welcome me into a new season of hanging on the window sill. That was until I burned out.

During my sorrow, I hadn't realized a monstrous hand had already screwed me off of the long, electrical cord and placed me into a bucket filled with other "useless" Christmas lights. From the time that I was constructed I knew that this moment would come....... Only I didn't know it would happen so soon.

I see the other bulbs around me being lifted out, one-by-one, and never returning back to my side. I can't stand the thought of being thrown into the recycling to be molded, melted and mutilated into another one of those plastic bottles. Ready for my turn, I position myself into the reach of the grasping hand. Sure enough it finds me and I am carried to a work table....... A WORK TABLE?! "Why a work table?", I think to myself as I feel the sudden, sharp pain of my bulb being ripped out of its socket. I grimace at the sting of a thousand needles, while I wonder ,"Why in the world have they not thrown me into the trash already"?! As I pant trying to regain my breath, I feel the soothing heat of a saudering gun melding my coils and wires into a new light bulb. That's when it hits me........ I am not going to be thrown out and replaced! My circuits shock at the joy of being set back onto the window sill to fulfill yet another year of decorating the Johnson's house. I think to myself what a wonderful year it has been, and definitely the most unforgettable...... at that moment my happiness fades as I see the color of my new bulb..........pink...........