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It was the dead of a dull, dry summer, when the blaring light of the sun seemed only to suck all the color out of her surroundings, rather than illuminate them. Anna Blake was sleeping days and working third shift at Save-Lots for reasons she herself did not completely understand. In her doll-sized bedroom, even with the blinds closed, it was bright like a new dime. The room was undecorated with only a tall, narrow dresser; a squat nightstand; and a rickety bookcase loaded with books, sketchbooks, CDs, and journals. There was a mattress on the floor that served as her bed, a space heater for the winter months, and a small, off-brand air conditioner in the window.
She had just gotten settled comfortably in bed, muscles relaxed and breathing slow and even, when she heard, as if from a distance, someone playing a radio loud enough that it could be heard over the buzzy drone of the AC. The voices were indistinct, but it was of sufficient volume that it could not be ignored.
She set her face into a hard expression. It was probably the downstairs neighbor, whom she referred to as Janice, having forgotten the woman’s real name through lack of use. But it also might be someone outside. Perhaps it was the old man next door listening to religious talk radio on his porch with the volume up as high as it could go, either because his hearing was shot or because it was his idea of evangelizing. Or maybe it was the layabout common-law husband of the high school dropout across the street, working on his car and blasting his favorite radio station to drown out the shrieking of their bevy of preschool-aged offspring. In any case, it seemed best to determine where the sound was coming from to see if anything could even be done about it. So she got out of bed, and switched off the air conditioner.
She was greeted with total silence.
She blinked, and furrowed her brow. She stood there a few moments, listening, but heard nothing. Shaking her head, she turned the unit back on and lay down on the mattress, welcoming sleep.
Mere seconds after her head hit the pillow, she heard it again.
It was a man, speaking with the slick inflections typical of disc jockeys. The station was detuned: there was static and she still could not make out any words. Regardless, she was not going to get to sleep with that radio playing. Throwing herself back out of bed, she marched over to the AC, and turned it off with a swift, indignant motion.
Instantly, the voice stopped. All was quiet.
She stood there for a moment, stiff and still, trying to piece together a reasonable explanation for what had just happened—twice. Was Janice having a bit of fun with her?
She peered out the window through the blinds. All she saw was an empty street. No one was around. A creeping sense of isolation came over her. She glanced toward the driveway. Parked in its usual space was her beat-up green Honda. Janice’s white SUV, however, was gone.
She stared at the spot for a long moment then, tentatively, clicked the AC on again. At first, she heard nothing but the hum of the machine.
Then, indistinctly but undeniably, she heard what could be nothing other than a man’s voice. She switched the unit off.
Silence.
Anna sat down quickly on the mattress.
Her thin frame rigid, she waited for the voice to rematerialize, but the silence pounded in her ears (really, it was the sound of her heart).
She left the bedroom and tramped downstairs. The white light of day, clear as a trumpet blast, greeted her as she stepped outside. A tidal wave of heat broke upon her. Steeling herself against the unpleasant air, she made her way across the porch and knocked on Janice’s door. She allowed a reasonable amount of time to pass before she knocked on the door again. Nothing. It was as if she could reach out and touch the smooth, cool surface of the stillness.
She waited longer. Nobody came. She tried to peer inside through the window on the door. All was black inside. She knocked a third time, rapid flutterings in her stomach. But she knew no one would come. And no one did.
Anna trudged back upstairs, and stood in the doorway of her bedroom. She listened, but heard nothing. Hesitantly, she crawled back into bed and laid her head on the pillow. Maybe something was wrong with the air conditioner? She settled in, deciding that the thing to do was try and go to sleep without turning it back on.
She strained her ears. Still nothing. She sighed, and curled up into a fetal ball.
As the minutes ticked by, the temperature in the room became increasingly oppressive. She uncurled herself and stretched out so that no part of her body was unnecessarily touching any other part of her body. Eight-thirty crept forward to nine. By now, it was as if the room were stuffed to the ceiling with cotton wool, pressing against her chest, its thick fibers coating the inside of her lungs. Her forehead was slick with sweat, and her dark hair stuck to the back of her neck like metal shavings to a magnet.
Wearily, she crawled out of bed on her hands and knees, reached up, and turned the air conditioner back on. She stood, and felt the cool blue air soak into her skin. Very faintly, she thought she heard—no. Maybe she did hear something a little unusual, but this was no time to focus on it; she had to get to sleep. She arranged herself spread eagle on the mattress and forced her limbs, neck and back out of their tensed state and into one of liquid relaxation. The AC droned on, and degree by degree, the room began to cool. Anna sighed. She felt moments away from sleep at last.
That’s when the singing began.
It was a choir of high voices—children’s voices, perhaps—and they were singing, in ghostly tones, the same four notes over and over again: hal-le-luuuuu-jah, hal-le-luuuuu-jah….
Every muscle in her body immediately stiffened. Rapid, irrational thoughts flash-cut in her mind: the house is haunted… I’m losing my mind… I’m picking up a satellite transmission… someone is playing a radio… I’m losing my mind… it’s the aliens… I’m losing my mind…
“No!” she said out loud, involuntarily. Then: “Go away. I’m trying to sleep. Just shut up. Leave me alone!” But the singing did not let up for a moment.
Anna sat up in bed again, her first instinct being that she should turn the air conditioner off again. But she couldn’t sleep in this heat. Still, wouldn’t that be better than—?
At that point, other voices began joining in. Behind the singing was a voice like that of an auctioneer, talking at an incredible speed, and behind that was what sounded like Martin Luther King giving a rousing civil rights speech. The voices were garbled and full of static, as it were, but the voices of the children’s choir came through clear and strong: hal-le-luuuuu-jah, hal-le-luuuuu-jah…
As she listened, struck to her nerves in mute terror, Martin Luther King and the auctioneer’s voice faded out and were replaced by a Spanish woman speaking in a flood of unintelligible syllables. Behind that voice was what sounded like a recording being played at a high speed, resulting in sped-up “chipmunk” talk. And still, the bodiless children sang: hal-le-luuuuu-jah, hal-le-luuuuu-jah…
She stumbled out of bed and turned the AC unit off.
Dead silence. She put her head in her hands.
Anna dragged herself into the kitchen and picked up the phone. She wanted to call someone, to hear a voice she could understand and know from where it came, but was there anyone she could trust with such bizarre information? She felt as if she were in the center of a great ocean, miles upon miles of dead water in every direction, with nothing else in sight. The desolation of the moment left her paralyzed with uncertainty. She sank down to the floor, her back against the refrigerator. She felt like crying—in fact, she desperately wanted to cry—but no tears came.
Suddenly, she remembered the letter she’d received six months ago from her aunt, Robin. The one she’d skimmed through quickly, almost thrown away, but at the last moment instead tossed in the drawer with all the other meaningless sympathy cards she’d received after her mother’s sudden and violent death.
Robin was probably at work right now, but she dialed her aunt’s phone number anyway. When she got the machine, she hesitated. Then:
“Hi, Aunt Robin? This, uh, this is Anna… Um, do you know anything about, I don’t know, about sounds? I mean, sounds that air conditioners make? Or maybe it’s just, you know, white noise, and you hear sounds in it? Like, I don’t know… singing, maybe? Um… I might call you at work. Something’s really wrong and I don’t know what it is. But I can’t sleep and I don’t know what to do. Please—please call me.”
Unsteadily, she got to her feet, still clutching the phone in her hand. She made her way back to her bedroom and sat in the doorway. The children were still singing their hallelujah chorus, and the chipmunk voices jabbered on, and they had now been joined by what sounded for all the world like a Hank Williams song. She shivered, despite the heat at her back.
Returning to the kitchen, she put the phone back in its place, and glanced down the hall toward her bedroom. There was nothing else to be done.
Anna crawled back into bed and pulled the sheet over her head. It was too warm like that, but some childish urge gave her illusions of a measure of safety by doing so. She squeezed her eyes shut against the light and began repeating in a small, tight-throated whisper:
This is not really happening; I am not really here.
This is not really happening; I am not really here.
This is not really happening; I am not really here…
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my blogger email is 
. Another thing, and this is probably just a personal quirk of mine, is the use of "suddenly" when Anna remembers her aunt's letter. Again, I have a personal aversion to that word and its dear friends "abruptly" and "presently," as nine times out of ten they're unnecessary. I think the sentence flows better without it. When such a distinction is required, I find that phrases such as "At that moment" or "It was then/Just then" sound more natural.
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