Not With A Bang, But A Whimper

What is the sound of a dying man, the final words that grace the lips of those beings seconds from passing into the beyond? Is it a feeble rattling breath, a frail wind passing through parched lips? The whispered affections unspoken in a life of unrequited love? No. The sound of death comes not from hospital beds nor the mouths of the elderly, eyes closed in finality. No the sound of death is what I hear every day at sporadic intervals as I lounge in my preferred reading nook in the lobby of my residence. It is the sound of a door alarm, a scion announcing the exodus of students from the upper annals of New Rez to the public gateway that leads to the dining hall.

When it began, the noise was a high pitched whimper, sounding twice at the open of the secluded doorway to the left of the entryway. I thought little of it, slightly perturbed by its unpredictable sonorous emissions but by and large oblivious to the comings and goings of my peers via the winding stairway. As the year has progressed however (this being a relative term as I am barely two and a half months into my tenure at university), the alarm at the exit from the staircase has begun to show the strain of constant use. Gradually, it began to lose it's Fran Drescher-esque whine and slowly changed clefs from treble to alto, alto to bass. It hovers in limbo, with the first alarm squeaking feebly from a hidden speaker, followed by a secondary piteous moan. Combined with the fact that the force required to open the door triggering the unpleasant sound is roughly equivalent to that necessary to topple a stationary Rosie O'Donnell and my somber prediction is that this particular portal is on its last legs.

As I listen to the woman at the piano tapping away at the ivory keys with impossible speed and precision, I cannot help but wonder if losing the telltale subdued screech will drastically change the dynamic of my one infallible haven of sanity. Was it not the Puritans who professed the inherent imperfection of man? Perhaps in order for my lobby nook to be the true manifestation of unspoiled comfort and convenience, I must be periodically reminded of the sonic horrors that inhabit this world, a proverbial anonymous Roman servant to whisper to the Marcus Aurelius within me, "You are only a man." After all, if this is the apocalypse, the end to my days of pleasure and productivity in this faux Victorian armchair, at least I've been forewarned. As Eliot said, "This is how the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper."