[img]396|left|Alex Campbell||no_popup[/img] Something woke me up very early this morning. It was a weird electronic sound, the kind made by a device that needs new batteries. It sounded like a chirp. I sat straight up in bed, and had a flashback.
(cue wavy flashback screen. The following first appeared in my blog, Inside My Head, on Nov. 28, 2008. I have adapted it for this essay.)
I was in a deep sleep, and all of a sudden, I was awakened by the sound of a robotic woman’s voice:
(beep!) LOW BATTERY.
I bolted out of bed (thank goodness I didn’t hurl myself off my loft, I was so scared!). I looked at the time: 11:50 p.m. What was that beeping? Did my friend leave her cell phone at my house? Who said “low battery?” It took me a minute to get my bearings, then I realized it probably came from my smoke/carbon monoxide detector.
Speaking Parts Are Killers
Of course it couldn’t just beep; it had to have a scary voice attached to it. I wondered when it would beep again. Could I go back to sleep? Of course not. It happened again half an hour later:
(beep!) LOW BATTERY.
All right, all right! I couldn’t listen to this thing all night. I unscrewed the detector from the wall (I could reach it from the loft and didn’t have to get a ladder. Whew!). I took the batteries out, and it screeched a little. It seemed like it was alive. I didn’t want to put new batteries in it, in case it beeped when I put them in. I put the deactivated dream dasher on the pillow next to me, as if it were some rejected lover. How pathetic.
My imagination took over, and I thought it was going to come to life and smother me. I saw it jumping off the pillow and covering my whole face. I said to myself, “You have got to stop reading so much Stephen King!” I prayed that no fire or carbon monoxide would come to the house in the eight hours I would need to sleep, and dozed off.
Woke up safely this morning and put the new batteries in. Sure enough, it tested itself by beeping and talking:
(beep! beep! beep!) FIRE!
(beep!) CARBON MONOXIDE HAS BEEN DETECTED!
Then it stopped. I’m so glad I waited til morning to change the batteries.
(cut to present time)
This is what I was thinking of when I woke up very early in morning. I looked at the broken watch attached to the side of my bed: 4:30 a.m. I thought, “Oh, no, am I going to have to go through all of that again? Aren’t the batteries supposed to last longer than a year and a half? Will I be able to go back to sleep?” I waited for a few minutes, then I noticed that the green light flashed, which meant it was okay.
What Would Dan Think?
I thought about my out of town guest, Dan, who would be coming to visit in a few days. Should I change the batteries now and be safe, or not, and take my chances? If I didn’t change the batteries, and it went off when Dan was here, he might actually fall off the side of the loft, not being used to sleeping six feet above the floor. If he managed to stay in the bed, I’d have to climb the ladder and climb over him, explaining all the while:
(beep!) LOW BATTERY.
Dan: What the???
Me: Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, it’s not a real woman. It wasn’t me; it’s the fire detector. It needs new batteries. She said, “Low battery.”
Dan: What?
Me: Um, can you just move over a minute? I just have to, get the…well, I have a half an hour before she beeps again, ha ha, um, I have to take this (grunt, unscrew detector)…off. There. She won’t be bothering you again. Mwhaaa haaa haaa! I rub my hands together maniacally.
Dan, inside his head: Only four more hours till I have to leave for my “appointment.”
I didn’t hear any more beeping, and eventually I drifted off to sleep again. Perhaps it was all a dream. My friend Mike once asked me how I got new ideas for writing. I told him the ideas just came to me. And they do. Sometimes at 4:30 in the morning.
Ms. Campbell may be contacted at campbellalexandra@hotmail.com
