By Maryanna Gabriel
"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."
- Edgar Allan Poe
As the lumberyard rises from the ashes, I am remembering my father scaring us to death by reading Edgar Allan Poe's, "The Tell Tale Heart" right before bedtime and then pulsing the flashlight through the orange curtain after he said goodnight until my brother, sister and I screamed for mercy.
Which brings me to my hallway, speaking of screaming. I have a smoke detector that beeped through online zoom classes. Sometimes if I adjusted it's location it would stop, but at critical junctures of conversation it would start up again. It has been driving me batty.
I frantically searched for a manual and could not find one. The alarm was wired in and cost a lot of money to put into place. Was. Notice the verb tense. The day came when I had to do a presentation and silence was a priority. With firm resolution I got my snips and cut. "Desperate times call for desperate measures. That will stop you. If I die in a fire I will just have to deal with it later." The logic of this might need some work.
Lo. It continued to beep. How is this possible? I hid it under the couch. Could still hear it. Into the depths of the underwear drawer. Could still hear it. I got out a magnifying glass and read the fine print on it's little chirping underbelly. A battery. Of course. But why? Over the battery cover it says DO NOT REMOVE BATTERY or COVER WILL NOT FASTEN. I briefly considered drowning the thing in a bucket of water.
As I see it there is no choice, it is in the shed on the farthest reach of the property, still chirping its relentless heart out. I have not solved the problem though. Wires dangle in the middle of the hall. Somehow the smoke detector has to go back on. All very Poe.