My Insane Twist

It’s 2 am.

Somewhere on the 2nd floor of my house, a smoke alarm chirps intermittently to let me know its battery is low. It never has the courtesy to give me such notifications during waking hours. It always chirps in the middle of the night.

It’s 2:30 am.

I can’t ignore the beeps anymore. I rouse myself from the bed to investigate. I am sure the high-pitched sounds are coming from a unit in the hallway. When I stand there, the chirps shift to the guest bedroom, where another unit is located.

I move to the bedroom, only to find the squeaks have returned to the hallway. I return to the hallway, and the peeps shift to the other guest bedroom.

I triangulate in this manner for another hour, ping-ponging between the hallway and the bedrooms.

It’s 3:30 am.

I decide to take bold action and twist the unit in the hallway, even though the sounds are clearly not coming from it. When I remove the batteries, the central alarm begins blaring.

I scurry to replace the batteries, but the alarm company calls. I explain the situation, assure them there is no fire, and ask for help identifying the source of the cursed shrieks.

“That’s another department,” I’m told. The operator who responded to the false alarm transfers me to another department.

It’s 4:00 am.

After 30 minutes on a video call with tech support in India, I say to hell with it and remove the batteries from the hallway unit again, even though I know it is not the culprit.

All hell breaks loose. The central alarm sounds again, but there is no way to cancel it this time. My phone flashes red. Joe sleeps through the entire ear-splitting event.

It’s 4:10 am.

I hear an insistent pounding on the front door. It is the police.

“The fire department is on its way,” I’m told. I explain why the alarm went off, but the policewoman insists the fire department will need to see for itself.

I get the damned alarm turned off.

It’s 4:12 am.

Two enormous fire trucks arrive. I tell the firefighter what happened and apologize profusely for the false alarm. The firefighter is kind and understanding. He says he doesn’t need to enter after all, since he doesn’t want to track snow through the house if everything is okay.

It’s 4:15 am.

The fire trucks maneuver in our narrow driveway. I hope they do not drive over the landscaping during their egress.

It’s 4:30 am.

Once the commotion dies down, I hear another chirp.

At long last, I realize the sounds are coming from under a console table in the upstairs hallway. 

I am unable to remove the unit from the wall to replace its batteries and silence this instrument of sonic torture. The device is stuck to the wall.

It’s 5:00 am.

Joe rouses himself from his slumber. He makes a surreptitious phone call.

Men in white coats coax me out of the house and into a waiting ambulance.

It’s 5:45 am.

I sit here in this rubber room, remembering Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” I sympathize with its narrator, who was also tormented by a recurring sound: “True!-nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous, I had been and am. But why will you say that I am mad?”

It’s a week later.

I am calm now. I have grown accustomed to my new surroundings. I like it here.

My keepers are kind. They push my food through a slot in the door three times a day.

Joe visits me occasionally and communicates via an intercom.

It’s 2 am. I don’t know what day it is.

I hear a chirp.

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