(Note, this is fiction.)

I was in my car, heading home from work. It had been a normal Wednesday, and work was annoying as ever. Customers can be so rude sometimes.

Anyway, I was heading home from work, taking the scenic route. The interstate was backed up, so I chose to drive through downtown to get home. The traffic downtown was stuffy, but not nearly as bad as it was on the highway.

I sat at a red light, waiting behind an old red truck that sounded like it was starting to idle. The engine sputtered as the truck sat motionless. That’s when another sound started. At first, I thought it was the truck’s engine or breaks, given that the thing looked like it shouldn’t even be running anymore. But then it grew louder. I looked around. Are there tornado sirens around here? I thought. I craned my neck to look up at the buildings around my car. There were no tornado sirens I could see, but it was Wednesday, and in the Midwest that always seems to be when cities test their sirens. I thought nothing of it and settled back into my seat as the light turned green.

When I got home around half an hour later, I could still hear the sirens. I thought that the sound would have faded as I drove further out of downtown, but the sound wailed in and out no matter where I was. Growing annoyed, I thought, Do they usually test the sirens for this long? The noise was starting to bother me. I got up from the couch and looked out my sliding glass door. I couldn’t see any sirens, but as I had figured out earlier, that didn’t mean much.

Later that night, I pulled my pillow over my head. It’s 2 AM, dammit, I groaned, looking at the clock on my cell phone. I’d been lying in bed for nearly three hours, and the Tylenol I had taken did nothing to calm the headache that the siren’s wailing had caused. I scratched my back and got up out of bed.

As a last attempt to figure out what’s going on, I walked through my small apartment to the balcony. The humid fall air brushed past me as I slid the door open and stepped out onto the wet wooden planks. It was a still night, with only the wailing disrupting the calm air. I smelled smoke and looked over. My neighbor stood on his own balcony, smoking a cigarette.

“Hey,” I said, walking to the wooden railing that separated us. He looked up at me as though shocked someone else was outside. “What the hell is that noise? Any idea?” I raised my hand to rub the side of my head. My skull throbbed on all sides as the wailing continued. My neighbor raised his eyebrow and tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette.

“What sound?” He raised his hand to his mouth and took another puff.

I paused. “The sirens,” I said flatly.

My neighbor looked away from me for a second. “I don’t hear anything, man.”

“What do you mean you don’t hear it? It’s deafening!”

He shook his head and rubbed the end of his cigarette against the damp railing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Flicking the cigarette over the side of the balcony, he exhaled a trail of smoke as he walked back into his apartment and closed the door.