The Haunting of the Bell

It started with beeping.

Similar enough to the fire alarm’s that I actually checked the alarm’s batteries the first time it happened.  Press the button, squeal in my ears – nope, not the fire alarm.

It didn’t beep again until the next day, by which time I figured out the source to be the doorbell we hadn’t yet deployed.  It was a simple thing from Bunnings – a plain button and a block of grey plastic that promised to spew out inane mono-tonal tunes on command from strangers at our front door – and we’d already inserted the batteries in anticipation of the hordes of visitors we expected this timely technology, well-positioned for ergonomic ease, to summon to our simple home.  I’d set the device to the ding-dong chimes of Westminster a few days earlier, and this high-pitched legato beep was certainly not bringing about fond imaginations of Big Ben.  Slightly annoyed, but not yet perturbed, I removed the batteries and promptly forgot about it all for a week.

The second time the batteries were inserted, it took only two hours to beep again, this time three long beeps in a row.  The next morning both Vicky and I were in the kitchen on another repeat performance.

“What is that?”

“Doorbell.”

“It woke me up last night.”

Oh, that’s not good; anyone who’s had a fire alarm battery go flat at 2 in the morning knows the pain of electrical devices cracking shits when you’re deep into nappytimes.  I’ll look into it I said.

That night, in the middle of an episode of Studio 60, it chimed.  Neither of us had obviously touched the button – were anywhere near the button – but there it was, sitting on the kitchen bench, LED display merrily glissing up and down, the speaker blaring out an almost in-tune Three Blind Mice.

“…”

“…”

“Whaaaaat,” he both droned, staring at each other.  After a quick ‘it wasn’t me’ check, I got up and found the button transmitter.  Hit the button.

Diiiiing doooong diiiiing doooong it spluttered in awful grandfather-clock mimicry.  I slowly backed away from the device, ran for cover under the doona and refused to come out until well into the next morning.

There were another two incidences of the ghostly Three Blind Mice melody, the last happening well late into the doorbell's last fateful night.  The device, its life-blood batteries and wiring guts now sprawled throughout the house, no component in line of sight of the others, has not cried again since.  And hell come henceforth for any who break the holy seal that separate these parts.

-Anthony

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