It was the same as any other day she had been living in the tiny town outside of New York except for one thing: the loud beeping noise. It was four o’clock in the morning, far too early to be awake, but here she was, overly hot from the winter comforter on her bed in late September, staring at the closed blinds across from her bed.

She hadn’t been sleeping well the past few nights. Her return trip from Europe made it difficult to get back on New York time, but she had taken melatonin the night before in hopes she could reset, waking up in the morning under the gray autumn sky.

It was a staggering five beep staccato, as if a fire alarm was going off. It wasn’t blaring, the kind of alarm that assaults the ears and requires immediate attention, but somehow weakened. She sighed, sitting up in bed, a small droplet of sweat moving down her chest. Her apartment was always cold and that morning was no exception. The direct sunlight only graced the back walls of her kitchen and living room for 20 minutes a day right before sunset. She slipped the covers off and pulled the blinds cord, looking through the dark blue toward the apartment building across the street. Sitting back down on the edge of the mattress, she took in the outlines in the early morning light. 

A five story, red brick building stood where a small one-story commercial unit used to be. They had finished construction two years ago and slowly it began to fill with people sick of the city, 30-year olds without kids who liked the small town vibe while still having access to the restaurants of Manhattan for brunch and weekend exhibits at the art galleries. She ran her fingers back across her hair, tucking it behind her ear. She squinted her eyes, looking up and down the building, trying to find a bright light on. There weren’t any but the faint haze of lamps people left on like lighthouses in the night. It was too early for anyone to be in the streets, empty  except for the shadow of a darting cat behind the garbage cans in the narrow alley. 

She bit her lip, biting air moved over her thighs and bare arms. Her t-shirt smelled like her, damp sweat, along her limbs. She thought about getting out the step stool in the front closet, turning on the lights to look at her own alarms to make sure it wasn’t in her apartment, but it seemed too muted to be within her one-bedroom space.

She let the beeps take over between her inhales and exhales, trying not to get upset. She closed her eyes, imagining the lights of the residents to flicker on as they became more annoyed, more curious, about the mysterious beeping. Behind her eyes, a flash of her dreams appeared: the small park behind the building, the one she went to so she could spend time underneath the trees, to watch the ants crawl up and down leaves of grass, was sparkling with sunlight. A small sign was at the perimeter, the rumbling of a heavy truck nearby. The beeping continued and she opened her eyes. Looking out again at the building, there were still no lights. She stood up and looked up and down the street, waiting for movements, waiting for something to shift. 

She closed her eyes, the vision of the park now gone, replaced by a gaping hole in the earth. Men in yellow hardhats and neon vests walked around in the bottom, fastening cement pylons into the deepening pit. She exhaled and opened her eyes once more, the beeping fading to a faint beep from her own apartment, a single chirp. She got up, padding feet against the hardwood floor. She flipped the light to her kitchen, an orange consuming glow draped along the countertops. There was her carbon monoxide alarm, blinking red in quick succession. It chirped and she unplugged it from the socket, opening the back to find a corroded battery. She dug her nail into the node, pulling it out and replacing it with another battery from the drawer underneath the coffee pot. It chirped once and she plugged it back into the wall, waiting for it to chirp again, at least to say it was back in working order. The red light slowly blinked at her. Maybe it was all in her head, maybe it was nothing but her imagination and lack of sleep. She poured herself a glass of water and took a sip, breathing warm air out of her nose over the top of the water as she drank. There, in her heavy exhale from the back of her throat, the alarm chirped five times, opening up the final staccato to a faint mechanical roar, vibrating through her windows, coming closer.