Devil Battery

The house was quiet, just as you'd expect it to be at 5AM, when my husband and I were awakened by a popping noise.  Not the loud crack of a gun, but a medium intensity sound followed by a sort of tinkling of glass or something.  My first thought was that a light bulb had blown, and little shards of glass and filament had rained down to the floor.  My husband thought it was more likely that someone had crossed our fifty acres and shot (he allowed for accidentally) through the house.  How men can leap to such conclusions is beyond me, but there you have it.  Or you don't have it, because no bullet hole could be found, despite his searching with enough lights to illuminate an E.R. 

A much more profound coincidence to me is that my week had already been full of conversations about aneurisms and popping arteries, a potpourri of early demise tales that invariably ended with "at least they didn't suffer."  A dear friend who had just turned 50 lay down on the sofa and never got up again.  A 38 year-old died in the night while his wife and four young children slept innocently on.  A prominent doctor passed away just as suddenly, leaving friends and family with more questions than answers.  Yet another friend, much luckier, experienced a tiny stroke that left no long-term effects except a greater zeal for living.  She called it her "wake-up call," a chance to renew an all-too-often-neglected path toward creativity.  The stroke became a blessing to her, the impetus to put the talent, specifically the voice God had given her, to good use.  And she has, with vigor.  For this friend, a miniscule pop in the brain was a beginning rather than an end. 

I drifted back to sleep while my husband continued searching for the source of the mysterious popping noise, but woke up for a second time when he exclaimed, "The damn devil battery!"  Three days earlier, he had pocketed a dead battery, one of those rectangular ones we used to call transistor batteries. (Where have all the transistor radios gone, btw?)  Before he had a chance to throw it out, he heard a medium-loud pop that startled him, followed by a second one a few seconds later.  Then his pants pocket heated up rapidly, causing him to fling the not-so-dead-after-all battery to the ground.  It appeared to have suffered some kind of incident of its own, and battery innards were erupting from its two pronged head.  Fascinated, my husband spent the rest of the afternoon rubbing pennies against fresh batteries, trying unsuccessfully to duplicate the event.  But it was this popping sound - three days later - that he recognized in the wee hours of the morning. He was like a proud papa tracking down an infant's cry as he brought "Devil Battery" to my bedside, showing me where it had erupted again, spraying more grey matter to the floor. 

Now there are varying opinions about what to do with Devil Battery.  Hubby wants to either throw it to the middle of the pond to protect the family from imminent spontaneous combustion, or else sue the battery manufacturer for psychological trauma.  I'm thinking it may have greater cosmic significance, like my friend's mini-stroke.  I should start writing again, I keep telling myself.  Not because it will change the world, but because it changes my world.  And no, I'm not really so vain as to think God is speaking to me through Devil Battery, but it's as good a prompt as any to resurrect my notes and abandoned projects and make writing a more regular part of my routine.  (Notice I'm not committing to any specific schedule.)

Until my husband confiscates it for purposes of national security, I'm keeping Devil Battery on my writing desk as an odd talisman. And as a reminder of what wake-up calls are all about.