And The Beat Goes On ...

I don't know a Mama alive who doesn't hear everything. Even in the dead of the night, having been asleep for hours, we hear it. Everything. A sick child crying out. A teenager two hours over curfew, creaking through the house on tiptoes and their best behavior. The neighbor's dog, two houses down and his barks, echoing endlessly into the night. We hear everything.

Three nights ago, or should I say, three mornings ago, I awoke to the strangest noise. Like soft, muffled music. I sat straight up. Listened for a minute, and thought to myself, are you kidding me?! WD has left his alarm clock setting to ON and he KNOWS we don't have to get up for work today! I began shaking his arm, telling him to cut off his alarm. He's trying to wake up, but not fast enough to suit me. I jump up out of bed, flip on the closet light which illuminates but does not blind, stumble around to his side, only to realize, it's not his alarm clock. Because I am looking at the clock, and it is OFF, and the time is exactly 5am. He's almost awake now, his C-Pack mask still roaring, the window A/C until blowing, and him mumbling through the mouthpiece of the mask that he hears nothing. I can still hear it. I'm snatching open drawers to the nightstand. Nothing. Snatching open drawers to the high mirrored dresser. Nothing. And then, the music stops. Just stops. I hear nothing else. I'm standing there wide awake, shaking from the cold, looking back at a crazy looking C-Packed face staring back at me, and I hear nothing.

I climb back in the bed, only to listen to C-Pack face fuss at me for waking him up. For nothing. For no good reason. There was no music, I am crazy, he rants. He rolls over and goes back to sleep. While I lay there face up, eyes adjusting back to the darkness and wait. Wait for the music to start again. It never does. And I drift back off to sleep.

Night number two. It is time to go to bed. The memories from the night before flood back in. Mainly because all day that day, Mims has been telling and re-telling that story to everyone who will listen and the weirdness of it all is still in the forefront of my mind. I'm not crazy I tell myself, I heard it. I know I did. But what was it? And where was it coming from?

I know I read too many scary novels. And I know I watch too many scary television shows. Criminal Minds, CSI, and anything else that makes the mind do crazy tricks on itself. But I heard that music. That creepy muffled music. I know I did.

As I was saying, it's time to go to bed. Now because my mind has had all day to think and wonder, it's stretched my imagination far and wide and I am considering that maybe something was IN my room and then left. Like the movie Gaslight. Trying to make me feel crazy. Well, I'll fix that by golly, I'll lock the bedroom door. And I did. I also left a light on in the living room. To make people think we were still up of course. All night long. People don't break into houses at night while people are still up and awake. Do they?

All night passes, no music. None.

Night number three. Last night. I'm alright now. I have forbidden anymore talk of "the music" all day long. And now it's time to go to bed. I'm still a little weird. But I'm alright. I leave the bedroom door unlocked this time. But I still leave a light on in the living room. Sometime about 2:30am, I wake up thirsty, I take a sip of water out of the bottle next to my bed on the nightstand. Evidently, I don't have the top on well, I fumble trying to put the bottle back on the stand in the dark, and I drop it. Water splashed out, on the side of the bed, and I began to whimper. Because I am cold, the water is cold, and now my sheets are wet and cold. Mims is awake now after all this commotion, wants to know what's wrong, I tell him, still whimpering, and he pats his side and tells me to come over there, where it's warm and dry. I fall back asleep.

I hear it again. Every sensory fiber in my entire body is on alert. That same creepy muffled music. I am slinging covers off, moving/running to the other side of the bed again, because it is clear that is where it's coming from. Mims is trying to adjust to my manic behavior, but I don't give him time to adjust before I am switching on the bed light on his night stand, the light searing into his eyes. He's carrying on about the light, his C-Pack is roaring, the A/C unit is blowing and suddenly we are in the reenactment scene from two night ago. Except the music does not stop as quickly, or maybe I got around to his side of the bed faster this time. Same motions, slinging open drawers, looking at his clock, which again, reads dead on 5am. And again, it's not his clock.

Now, some of you may remember me telling you a few weeks ago that my parents brought a lot of my grandmother's things to me. Love letters, her wedding dress, birth certificate, all kinds of personal belonging from many, many years ago. They brought them to me in an old fashioned hat box that has been sitting in the corner of my bedroom on the floor since Thanksgiving. My plan is to buy a trunk to put all these things in, but it just hasn't happened yet. So there, in that dark corner, sits that hat box with all those items that belong to my Grandmother who is in heaven now.

All of a sudden, my body got as still as the night. I leaned over and eased back the top of that hat box. And the music stopped. Just stopped. I stood there. Frozen. Mims had finally shut his mouth. And he was sitting up in bed. Frozen. I looked at him and he looked at me. I backed away from the box, walked back to my side of the still damp bed, climbed in, and said "I don't want to talk about it" and closed my eyes.

This morning after we were all up, had our coffee and were alert and awake again, I was the first to bring it up. Zach is staring at me like I have four heads as I recited the story back, for the first time out loud. Mims is carrying on to Zach about being blinded in the middle of the night by the beside lamp and that his eyes are still on fire from the brightness of the light. And I am still just baffled.But I tell them both, tonight, I am setting the clock for 4:45am and we are going to wake up and sit there, and wait for it. Wait for the music to start at 5am. And catch it! Whatever it is...catch it!

All of sudden Mims says, where is my old cell phone? I said I have no idea where is it? He says I think I put it in my dresser drawer a few days ago, go get it please. I walk back to the bedroom, look in the drawer, take out the phone that is no longer in use, and bring it back to him. He hands it to Zach. Zach begins to push buttons and make faces and then begins to laugh. Now they are both laughing.

Apparently, even though you have another phone now, and your old phone is no longer in use, some of it's functions still work. Like the alarm. Like the alarm that had been set to MELODIC TUNES for your wake up call. AT 5AM.

For sometime now, I have not been "allowed" to read my scary novels at night anymore. It may be that come the New Year, my nighttime TV watching privileges will also be reduced. It seems my over active imagination has gone to places that no normal mind should go and my family may be planning an intervention.

Personally, I'm a little disappointed. I kind of liked the idea that my Grandmother was trying to talk to me through music in a hat box. However, I would have much rather it happened in the daylight, while i was completely awake, and with a little warning. Like a fly by from a beautiful butterfly, or at the very least, the sound of her beautiful laughter somewhere in the background of my mind.

But by golly, I am NOT crazy. I AM NOT CRAZY.