Inception

Let me set the scene for you.

It was the middle of the night. I was asleep in bed. Dreaming. For some reason, there was a repetitive

BEEP.

beep about once a minute. Finally, I opened my eyes and realized that the beeping was in real life, and what the hell was making that noise because

BEEP.

nothing was on, not my television, not my laptop, not my phone. Eventually, it occurred to me that the only thing that made sense was the

BEEP.

smoke detector, although since it wasn’t a steady OMG YOU’RE GOING TO DIE GET OUT OF THE HOUSE warble, it had to be something else. The

BEEP.

batteries were running low. But I was so tired and being the middle of the night, I was feeling extra lazy and

BEEP.

didn’t want to get up and change them. Still, it was kind of hard to sleep with that thing beeping every minute, so I got up to change get that stupid thing new batteries. Except

BEEP.

that was a dream. So I really got up to change the batteries. Except that was a dream. Then I went into a normal (i.e. crazy) dream, but still, every five seconds it felt like

BEEP.

there was another beep. Cue another dream where I got up to change them. By six a.m., I knew I wasn’t getting anymore sleep, but I

BEEP.

wouldn’t give it the satisfaction. I let it beep. I let it feel the pain of knowing it was slowly dying, every beep a burst of energy it could not

BEEP.

afford, but there were worse alternatives, there was death, there was non-existence. And perhaps I would show mercy, there might be new batteries restore it to life

BEEP.

but for a few seconds while I changed them, it would be dead, just a hunk of plastic, less useful than a doorstop.

BEEP.

Long story short, I’m really tired today.