Panic Arithmetic

Three AM and the beep comes,

small and patient,

like it has all the time in the world

to ruin me.

The red light blinks on the ceiling.

I don't have my glasses.

I stand in the dark

doing the math wrong,

adding up disaster

where there's nothing

but a battery dying.

Fire. Carbon monoxide. Collapse.

My heart stops and then runs.

My hands go cold.

My chest is tight.

This is it. This is how.

This is the moment

everything ends.

One beep.

Two beeps.

Three.

Then nothing for long enough

that I think I imagined it,

that I'm dying anyway,

that the beep was just

the opening act

of something

that won't have an ending.

It comes again.

Four minutes later.

Steady. Insistent.

I find the ladder in my mind

before I find the ladder in my hallway.

My hands are shaking

when I climb.

The red light blinks

like a heartbeat

that isn't mine,

like something

watching me

figure out

how to survive

this,

how to turn

the smallest thing

into the reason

I believe

the world is ending.

The battery comes out.

One dollar battery.

One hour of terror.

I get back in bed

and the silence is worse.

I wait for it to come again.

I wait for my heart to remember

how to slow down.