The Shattered Prayer

Bea woke me up early this morning, which is nothing unusual. Bea and Cleto are my little fuzzy alarm clocks, and I’m normally awake between 5:30 and 6 every morning.

I was lying in bed, wondering if I should get up and go pee. I knew if I went back to sleep, I’d sleep badly, because, hey… gotta pee. But if I got up to pee, I’d likely stay up.

So as I was contemplating this all-important decision, I very clearly heard a little tiny high-pitched voice, that seemed to come from very near my ear, saying “Helloooooo”.

I barely had a chance to think, “what the hell?” before the voice said something else. It was several words, but distorted so that I couldn’t make it out. As it spoke these words, the voice faded rapidly and sped up into a sound that was somewhere between an insectoid buzz, and that sound a tape recorder makes when the tape is really really messed up.

I listened carefully for a few more minutes but heard nothing else. After that, I sure as hell wasn’t getting back to sleep so I opted to get up and pee. Because I know you wanted to know that.

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