Last night, I was having a nightmare. While fighting through it, in real life (whatever that means), at 1:11am, a sound from the other room woke me up.
Disoriented, the sound constant and filling my bedroom, it was the carbon monoxide alarm. Was it in my room? No. It was outside of my bedroom. I opened the door and stumbled into the hallway. The sound continued. It was coming from my bathroom. I turned on the light. A buzzing. Was it my hair clippers? No.
There, standing on my bathroom counter, my electric toothbrush vibrated. What the fuck had turned it on? A malfunction, I am sure. It was at the end of its life. Maybe an angel had used it to pull me out of the nightmare?
The toothbrush wouldn't turn off. I tried putting it back on its charger. No. The battery is not one you can take out. By 1:27am, I was bashing it against my bathroom sink. Still it buzzed. I wrapped it in a towel and threw it on the floor. It stopped buzzing. Five minutes later, it started again. By 2:30am I wondered if I should simply throw it outside. Falling back into sleep, I wondered if it would cause alarm outside. A call to have a sound investigated. A knock upon my door to ask why a toothbrush was in a pile of grass next to my neighbor's fence. I decided to leave it wrapped in a towel and hope the battery died soon enough.
It must have died around 3:30am. This morning, I picked it up and threw it in the wastebasket. It started buzzing again.
*
I am glad I was taken from my nightmare.
Most of last night was spent in the dark, half awake, wondering if this was what the narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart felt when the heartbeat of the dead man's heart filled the house, the room, his ears, his body, his mind.
In other news, I have started reading Megan Milks' book, Mega Milk: Essays. Unexpectedly (for me, for an essay book), I have been completely pulled in and am unable to put it down. It is incredibly written and the details are as perfect as they are immeasurable.
Be well; be loved,
k.
(image: Pawel Czerwinski)
