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"The Man Who Made Friends With Electricity" is a 4000-word short story by Fritz Leiber, about a man who believes he can talk to the electrical current in his house. The story was first published in the March, 1962 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Plot

Real estate agent Mr. Scott rents out a house to Mr. Leverett, even though the house has a electrical power pole nearby. Later, Scott visits Leverett, and finds him sitting next to the power pole, talking to the electricity. Leverett says that the electricity is patriotic, noting that is was indulgent to Benjamin Franklin, while killing a Frenchman who tried a similar experiment. When Scott’s son visits, Leverett shows him a snake charmer trick, in which he can make an electicrical cord dance, as long as it’s plugged into the wall. On a later visit, Scott finds that Leverett is in a distressed mood; it seems that the electicity is also passing through power lines that go through Europe and even the U.S.S.R. (Leverett is a fervent anti-communist). Later still, Leverett is alarmed, because the electricity has told him that it has no preference whatever between the free world and the communist world, and that it (the electricity) plans to stop any nuclear exchange, no matter how justified Leverett thinks America would be in fighting such a war. Leverett is horrified, but the electricity also says it will kill Leverett if he tells anyone. Later, Leverett dies in a freak electrical storm.

Additional Notes

This story has been reprinted in, among other places, Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 24 (1962).