Purple sparks
I used to be able to make purple sparks shoot from my fingertips. I just had to snap my fingers at just the right angle, with just the right force, when the humidity was just right, when my hair was tied up in a bun in just the right way …
I haven’t done that since about a year and a half ago now. Am I still capable of it? I don’t know how to tell—short of doing it again, of course. I haven’t even tried—why not? I think I’m afraid of finding out for certain that I’ve lost it. If I don’t even attempt it, then I can still imagine that I have the power to do it. Then again, though, even if I try it—having found the exact circumstances under which I’ve always observed succeed—and fail, that need not mean I’ve lost my purple sparks permanently. Perhaps there is some other condition that needed to obtain which I wasn’t aware of. Or perhaps the sparks will come back in their own time.