How will it be, they ask, when the Minister and the President of the Company arrive to switch on the current? Will the electricity flow like water, first lighting dull lamps and spinning slow fans next to the generator, then running through those thin and shiny filaments to the police station, the school, along the Rest House verandah - mango by mango - until it reaches the hospital to drip and spurt, like a farmer's furthest tap, amongst the sick-beds?
Not like water, explain the electricians. 'But strong and all at once.'

from Jim Crace, Continent