Collection of Tales

Useless Noise

        There seems to be a beeping in my head.

A constant 'beep beep beep' sound, which is annoying as it is periodical. I can't seem to remove it from my thoughts, lest it be gone already. Trust me, I've tried everything I can think of; humming, reading, drinking. Nothing works. I tried calling up my good friend, Chris, to ask his advice on my issue, but my movements seemed sluggish, slow. It was like an out of body experience, watching the pale clumsy hand knock over the numerous bottles before me, sending their four-smelling liquid to the carpets below.

But we weren't talking about that, where we? We were talking about.. of course. The beeping. I don't know I could have forgotten about it, of it's chronic, ugly noise. I wish it would stop. It's really not helping my beginning headache. 

I want to sleep, I'm tired. But that damn noise just drives me further awake. My eyes are also beginning to feel weird; tingly. Could it just be a side effect of the beeping? Sighing, I remove the burnt-out stub from my mouth slowly, before pushing it into the ashtray. I should really quit. Smoking isn't good for my asthma. As if on cue, I can feel the pressure building in my throat, until I issue forth a rattling cough. Odd. It's not usually this bad. My urge to cough fulfilled, I close my burn eyes in an attempt to get more sleep.

But still it beeps.

——

The paramedic checks over the burnt body, before confirming the death to his partner. "Poor guy," he murmured, as he rolled the limp corpse into the bag. "Fire- what a horrible way to go."

"Looks like he was drinking too," his partner noted, tossing a few of the bottles into a bag. "Probably didn't even know his house was on fire."

"Hey James, Matt, look at this.." the female paramedic called out, beckoning yo the two to where she was fiddling with the rubble. She pulled out a crisp object, and held it out. "It's his smoke alarm," she explained, before furrowing her brow. 

"Look, it's still beeping."

[a/n: This is a short story I wrote a while back. Sorry if it's terrible, I wrote the entire thing on my Kindle at midnight.  This will never be updated, lest I come back to correct my horrible grammar. It's about a year old, I believe. ]