ACTON28: AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC

THUD! THUD! THUD! Clattering tapping, scraping, raking of metal on concrete, tapping to no discernible rhythm, whooshing of liquids of pressure too high to be useful (surely) and horns of an arriving concrete mixer. Jangling metal lifted by crane slams to the floor of an unfinished level. Thank you my neighbouring alarm clock that forever remains unwanted.

A yapping dog, barking, growling and filling the air with its territorial call of power. I imagine it’s been disturbed by the building site. The dull humming of pumped up storey after storey probably haunts the ears of that canine. Either that or the dog is angry that it is confined to an exposed balcony. Howling away without shame. Poor thing. Wouldn’t you be? Balconies should be silent, not living, breathing, wolf like alarm clocks.

The pressure is too much. It hurts. I’m going to burst. Can I sleep through this? No. Just no. I must get up. The call of my bladder has rang. Get up! Get up! Get on up! I stretch on wearying legs, reach up, straighten and with legs like Bambi, I strut awkward motion toward the bathroom. Here I greet the porcelain telephone and deliver my undesirable alarm clock’s stream away.

I settle back into bed. The din of the building site. The dog yapping. Wet hands from washing them after my body refused me a minute more of closed eyes. Vrrrrrrrrrr. The whirring of a power drill in the apartment overhead. It wakes a baby. Screams echo around the walls in a room somewhere adjacent to the drill hall above. Twinkle twinkle… What’s that? A piano thunders into life. Repeated notes, some off, some tuneless ditty from the apartment below. The nonessential alarm clock is an orchestra today.

A scream for good measure echoes down the corridor by my apartment. The immediate neighbour’s daughter is in a singing mood. Their cockerel on the balcony let’s out a few sounds. Little does it know that it’s on the menu tonight. Their washing machine had finished. I can hear it beeping. The treble electronic bleeps come every minute, and have been doing so for at least this last hour. I hear as the grandparents of the family rip up large packaging boxes and slam plastic bottles together before compression by foot and body. They sing a song, gently, no doubt, but to my alert morning ears, it is at karaoke level. My neighbours are a reliable alarm clock. But please… not today.

De trop. Redundant. Rejected. Unsought. Unwelcome. Unsolicited. These alarm clocks aren’t of my choosing. I close my eyes. Trucks and cars honk on a nearby road. An ambulance siren is piercing the air, screaming at traffic to move aside. Judging by the duration, the selfish traffic is refusing to assist. Blackballed the ambulance shrieks a lonely sound of hope to narrow-minded folk going about their day, unaware of an emergency vehicle probably on the way to something more important than my desire to snooze a little more. These alarms are not in the picture of my plan to doze.

The body clock, programmed by weeks of morning necessity has won. The Monday to Friday alarm clock of my mind has triggered. Saturday is now a school day too. I wonder if Sunday will be any different.