I Took Its Wretched Life (and Other Sordid Tales)

Today I committed murder. I was provoked. And yet, surely even the fire alarm deserves to live its life, or to at least have a trial to let it answer for its transgressions. Perhaps you, gentle reader, can decide my moral culpability.

I was in the kitchen, innocently frying chicken for dinner when the unthinkable happened: the fire alarm began blaring out a warning. "The chicken is not burning!" it screamed. "But I would tell you if it were!"

Having had run-ins with that fire alarm before, I deftly ran to the fan over the oven, turned it on, and then dashed, a pair of jeans in hand from the laundry, to try to mute the panicked object. I then leapt heroically from the chair on which I was standing, wrested open the nearest window, and, fearing that I would wake the neighbours in our fourplex who were on nightshift, I ran back to mute the alarm again.

It did not cease its screaming; perhaps it somehow sense that its destruction was imminent.

I scrambled about, trying to dislodge a wire, remove a battery--anything!--to silence its anguished screeches, for it sounded like a rabbit trapped on a wire fence. The situation was grim: there were no buttons or batteries, and the screaming was now almost beyond my endurance.

I stood there, my jeans wrapped around the accursed creature in my hands. I tried to reason with it, to explain that yes, I realized that the chicken was not burning and that I appreciated its attempts to bring this fact to my attention.

Then my arms grew weary . . .

I moved around and alas!--my ears were met with silence. I dared to move a pant leg from the body of the fire alarm, for by now my arms were aching. The alarm squeaked and sputtered, and I thought better of it. I stood there for several more minutes, feeling a cold draft gusting in from the open window. "Surely there's no smoke," I reasoned. "Surely I can gently let the fire alarm hang from its three wires" (which were now dangling from the ceiling). "Surely it can be reasoned with."

Gently, ever so gently, I let go of the fire alarm. Like a collicky baby awakened by the sound of a knob turning, the alarm awoke with a vengeance. By now, it was beyond consolation.

In moments such as these, when one is either led to commit a heroic act or a grievous crime, I lost all reason. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife (a wedding gift, incidentally). The first wire I cut was clearly an artery, and the fire alarm sputtered and gasped, now in a panic that nothing but death could free it from. The second wire severed silenced it. Forever.