Thrum

Take a large orchestra, get them to play a single note - just above high c - for a beat, then listen to the resulting noise on an old transister radio. At midnight. Just as you are going to sleep.

Perhaps it was a dream. We are in the middle of nowhere here. Everyone is snuggled asleep. Noises like that don't just suddenly happen.

But then it suddenly happened again ten minutes later.

Time passed. I failed to relax. I failed to drop off.

I felt like a character in an Edgar Allan Poe tale: found the next morning, sent beyond madness by the Chinese water torture of a single note played at random intervals through the darkness of a long winter's night.

The next time was more of a beep-beep sound than a thrum.

I turned to my wife. "What is that?" I asked her, as surely she was awake as well? She snored a gentle snore of reply.

I'm on my own, I thought. Just me in all the world, haunted by the ghosts of a mad orchestra.

Then the true insanity of my situation revealed itself to me.

The orchestra wound itself up, this time joined by a choir of tormented souls, fresh from the very gates of hell itself:

"What's the story in Balamory, wouldn't you like to know?
What's the story in Balamory, wouldn't you like to go?"

It's amazing how quickly you can find a screwdriver when you really need one, don't you think?

I will put the batteries back. Of course I will. When the girls learn to put their toys away, I will put the batteries back.