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Asha wanted the bulbs bright before her mother arrived . The stall was a table at the end of a row , with oranges in crates and a string of small lights clipped to the frame . Those lights were her pride . In the daytime they did nothing . At dusk they made the fruit look warm , and her mother was coming from work to see the stall on its first evening . She plugged the string into the socket on the post . The bulbs woke , one after another , a thin warm line . Asha stepped back . The table looked ready . She wiped her hands on her apron and looked down the street . Her mother was not there yet . Then the light went out . All of it , at once . The socket was dead . Asha pressed the switch , then pressed it again . She checked the plug . It was in . She tried the small lamp she kept under the table . That was dead too . Along the row , other stalls had gone dim . A man laughed in a tired way . A woman called to her neighbor and got no answer . Asha stood with an orange in each hand and no light on her fruit . She wanted those bulbs . They were the part she had described at home , with her hands showing the size of the glow . Without them the table was only a table , and the evening looked unfinished . At the curb , the streetlamp was still on . It threw a hard white pool on the pavement , a short distance from her table . Asha looked at it and felt annoyed , as if the lamp were showing off while her string sat dead . Then she put the oranges down and took the near edge of the table . It was heavy . She dragged it , and then she carried the crates one at a time , until the fruit sat inside the white pool . Juice from a split orange stuck to her wrist . Her apron was dusty . The dark bulbs hung over the empty patch where the stall had been . " Asha ? " Her mother was at the curb , still in her work coat , looking at the fruit and then up at the dead string . " The power went , " Asha said . " I wanted it to look nice . " Her mother picked up an orange and turned it under the lamp . The skin showed every small mark . " I can see them , " she said . Asha let go of the table . Above the empty patch , the bulbs stayed dark .
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