I drift forever with the current,
Down these long canals they've made.
Tame, yet wild, I run elusive,
Multitasking to your aid.
Before I came, the world was darker,
Colder, sometimes – rougher, true.
But though I might make living easy,
I'm good at killing people too.

Perhaps light? It drifts forever (duh) with the current (total internal reflection on the surface of the water perhaps?), it runs wild and is elusive (you cannot "catch" light) yet is tame (can be used for our purposes) for multiple purposes (optic fibres, blah blah blah). The world was darker before light (DUH DUH DUH) and colder (light, when absorbed by particles, raises electrons to an excited state. The particle thereafter returns to ground state by emitting a photon of a different wavelength. The remainder of the energy is released as heat). It makes the world smoother as certain materials may decompose/chemically change when light is shone on them (that is the basis of film). It makes living easy (can stay up at night) but can kill people too (when concentrated into a very intense laser beam, it is possible to kill someone with it, though this might be somewhat less credible. More likely, light can kill when it is misused (headlights blinding a person on a night road who is thereafter knocked down) or when it is used in conjunction with something else to kill (animals which hunt at night may kill people).

Posted by Jack Lim on 2006-03-02 04:49:19