Probe

Chrome coloured metallic tip on a long needle, taste the light thrill-buzz of electricity on my tongue to check that you are working. Cold to the touch. I move around, finding the perfect point of balance to rest your tip on the contacts. When there is continuity you beep. A thicker more corroded metal tip is also placed on the contacts, but this time there is heat. Strong enough to feel a centimetre away from my fingertips. I can sense the radius of that heat. When the solder melts and the flux is released, an acrid smell of smoke and electronic parts rises and I need to move my head away from the poisonous curls. Or I can go back to an earlier time, where a similar tip is made of glass and a bulb on the end is filled with a drop of mercury. I place it on my tongue when it is cold and let my own natural heat transfer, watching the mercury rise like a needle to a point that tells me I have a fever. To go back to another time, the electric contact is at the end of a small, red plastic wand, tethered to the game's box by a red wire. I need the utmost concentration and control over my hand. No shaking, just accuracy. This is the only way to navigate the metal route laid out through the painted body's parts. One deviation from the route and the wand and the track make contact and the red light in the nose glows bright red and the buzzer sounds, sending a thrill of failure through me.