Part 3 — The Passing Note
908 Words
The fuse box hung on the wall like a secret no one wanted to deal with.
Milo stood in front of it, barefoot on the cold floor. He opened the box and stared at the tangle of wires inside. Some were loose. Others crossed in ways that made no sense — colors that didn't match, connections that looked like someone had guessed their way through it.
He reached up.
But his fingers barely touched the lower edge.
He stretched higher. His shoulder protested. The angle was all wrong, and he was too tired to care about finding a chair.
“Yeah... not doing that.”
He pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and wrote something in half-asleep strokes:
“Good enough. Now it's someone else's problem. It was his personal motto. Life was a game of passing the hot potato, and he was a champion.”
He turned, shuffled back toward the couch, and the paper slipped from his hand as he yawned. It drifted down somewhere near the coffee table. By the time it landed, he was already asleep.
Morning slipped into the house.
Ren came through, early as always, gym bag slung over his shoulder, still half-asleep. He saw the paper on the coffee table. Glanced at it. Kept walking.
Just another random scrap. People left stuff everywhere in this house.
The door clicked shut behind him.
As the sun rose, Marco wandered into the kitchen, stomach already awake even if his brain wasn't. He was halfway to the fridge when he saw the note sitting near the coffee table.
He picked it up. Turned it over.
Nothing on the back.
It looked like something he'd scribble down at the restaurant. A reminder. An ingredient note. But no. This wasn't his handwriting.
He read it again: “Loose screws. Wrong color.”
He shook his head, and his eyes drifted toward the fuse box.
A grin spread across his face, thinking.
If he fixed this — if he managed to solve the problem — maybe he'd actually get credit for being useful once.
He set the note aside, cracked his knuckles, and walked over to the fuse box like he was about to plate the perfect dish.
Minutes later, he stepped back, satisfied.
He'd tightened the screws on the outside panel — the ones holding the box shut. And swapped a few wires around. Red to red. Blue to blue. Half of them, as the others were confusing, so he left those alone.
He dusted off his hands and slipped back into the kitchen to check if it worked, but to his surprise, nothing had changed.
Then he quietly stepped aside as if nothing happened.
After a while, Lucy came down in search of coffee, phone already in hand, scrolling through posts. She saw the note on the counter and picked it up absently, stopped scrolling. Read it again.
“Wait, maybe this will work.”
She could make a post from this. She was already planning what she could make. She grabbed her phone, completely forgot about the coffee, and headed back upstairs.
The note stayed on the counter, near the coffee pot.
Next came Alex. He saw the paper and scanned it with the same expression he used for stock reports. He thought about it for exactly three seconds.
Fixing it himself = saves electrician cost.
But also = time + effort + risk of making it worse.
Net gain: unclear.
So he simply walked away.
Later, Iva passed by, saw the note lying there, picked it up, but didn't bother to think about it. Saying, “Someone's eventually going to fix this.” And kept on walking.
Evening took over the house like dust.
Leon was finishing up work when he spotted the note sitting right in front of him.
He picked it up, frowning at the messy handwriting.
He recognized the laziness in the strokes. Glanced toward the hallway. Toward the fuse box. And walked over to it.
Opened the panel with careful precision.
Inside was chaos. Loose wires, mismatched colors, everything tangled and half-done. Someone had clearly tried to fix it already.
Leon matched the wire colors properly. Organized the mess. Made it correct.
But when he tried to tighten the connections, the angle fought him. His hand slipped. The wires stayed loose.
He tested a switch. The lights were still flickering.
His expression didn't change, but something cold settled in his chest.
He closed the panel. Straightened his collar. Walked back to his laptop.
No one needed to know he'd tried.
Next morning, before sunrise.
Ren came storming through the hallway, still furious about something from his last session.
He passed the fuse box and, without thinking, slammed his fist into it.
The metal rattled. Something inside clicked.
He didn't notice. Just kept walking, muttering curses under his breath.
By midday, someone flipped a switch in the living room.
The lights stayed on.
Steady. Bright. No flicker.
Marco paused mid-bite, staring at the ceiling. “Wait...”
Lucy looked up from her phone. “Are the lights—?”
“Working,” Alex finished from the doorway.
Leon glanced over from his laptop,expression unreadable.
Marco grinned slowly. “So someone fixed it.”
Silence, No one moved.
But everyone's eyes found each other — lingering just a little too long, measuring, calculating.
The air in the room shifted.
Someone had solved it.
But who?
To be continued.
- Writer
