June’s flash fiction – That Noise…

Well the epiphany came to me. A little cutting here and there and I was down to the 250 maximum number of words.

That noise!

Beep-beep. I woke to the annoying high-pitched sound of something electronic. But what was it? I lay there listening, assorted thoughts running through my head. Was it a carbon monoxide detector? A smoke detector? My son’s alarm clock? I looked at our clock. Definitely not that. It was only around one thirty. The one thing I knew was that this noise definitely wasn’t was the BEEP-beep from either cell phone indicating low battery or missed call.

I eventually dragged myself out of bed. Outside the door, I stood in the hall and listened. It wasn’t coming from upstairs. Beep-beep. It continued. Down the stairs in the dark, I followed the sound. I stood at the foot of the stairs and listened again.

Beep-beep. It was louder now so the origin of the sound was definitely on this level. I moved into the living room. The sound grew fainter. Was it something in the front hall? I approached from the other archway. A flashing red light caught my eye. I looked closer. BEEP-BEEP!

The mystery had been solved! It was the cordless phone! It had been unplugged too long and was telling me that it needed to be put back where it belonged.

I gathered it up, made my way back upstairs, still without turning on a light, plugged the base back in and put the handset back in place. BEEP-BEEP. It had to get the last word. A few seconds later, all was quiet and I fell back into bed.

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