Around six a.m. he heard the cricket or
grasshopper rub its legs together or a
leg against a wing whatever one or the
other does. It’s December; was the bug
in a rug hiding from September to Dec-
ember, quietly biding its time until it
felt perfectly safe to chirp and jump
for joy? Might there be more than one —
a mate and then in mid-summer there
would be lots of little chirpers all over
the family room? But what about all the
vacuuming and surely the dog’s nose
would have sensed the bug’s presence?
These things ran through the man’s mind
while he lie in bed. It was very quiet; he
heard the rhythmic breathing of his wife
next to him and the quiet snore of the dog
on the floor, and then he heard it again.
It seemed very systematic. He counted
the time between chirps — a constant
thirty count. And then he knew; the smoke
alarm battery was dying. Oh, such mundane
things, which happen at inconvenient times,
he thought as he rose to extricate the
battery before the chirping woke his wife
and the snoring dog. He didn’t think he
had any more of those little rectangular
batteries, just lots of double A’s, triple
A’s, C’s and several D’s for the lamps
they use while camping.