The Alarm Voice

I stood unbelievably still in the empty kitchen as the fire alarm fretted at me. 

I might have felt more urgency had it been the continuous “ding-a-ling” cacophany of steel, but in this case there was only a recorded female voice calmly informing me that a fire had been reported.

With an uncertainty that had to be shared, I strode into the main body of the office, feeling a hint of animal instinct press me to movement.  The others were working; they seemed absurd in their lack of urgency. 

As I got closer to them, the alarm-voice drifted into the distance and could no longer be heard. I stopped when I came to one of them.  I couldn’t find the words, so I described what had just happened.  “I think the fire alarm might be going off, it’s just that you can’t hear it”.  My hand went absent-mindedely to my hair.  “You can hear it over there”.

No more than a polite curiosity came as the answer.  I couldn’t forget it or pretend it was not there; the voice over the speakers had demanded appeasement like a ghost. I wandered about.  I stood over my desk and looked at it.  It seemed hostile - like a trap - so I returned to the kitchen where the alarm-voice could still be heard.  The message was being repeated over and over, and I continued listening for a few loops as if to better understand what I had to do. 

“A fire has been reported.  Please remain where you are and await further instruction”.  Then there would be a series of staccato beeps. I wanted to shrug free of this problem - there seemed to be an emergency yet I was being asked to stay put. 

With an unfamiliar loneliness, I cleared the kitchen table.  Absurdly, I was sure to brush away all the crumbs I had left so as to leave no trace. Then my attention was jarred as I noticed the message had changed. 

Instead of saying “please remain where you are”, it now asked me to descend to Level 2 and await further instructions. There was now no justification for apathy.  Not only was there an emergency, but action was called for.  Among the desks and people, the voice was as inaudible as before.  I told them we had to leave because there was a fire.  I don’t know why but I did not relay the precise instructions, I just couldn’t understand the meaning of them.

I left the office through the unchanged reception area while the others were putting on coats.  I’d known about the emergency for longer, so I didn’t want to wait.  I bound down two sets of opposing staircases until I found the door for Level Two.  I could hear the alarm-voice coming from behind it, but its instructions could not be heard until I opened the door.

The lobby was featureless - bordered by lift doors and an entrance to a different firm’s office at either end.  The alarm voice was loud here in the lobby. Perhaps the people inside the offices couldn’t hear it. 

The voice was telling me to await further instructions as before.  The lifts were remarkably still; the voice demanded that they not be used.  Perhaps they had been deactivated.

I felt absurd.  I became angry because I didn’t know what to do, and was powerless.  Should I go back and find the others? I approached the door to the office on my left.  I could see people far inside that I didn’t know, but they showed no signs of urgency or confusion.  Maybe they can’t hear the alarm voice in there.

My anger intensified as I realised how dangerous this was.  Somebody had felt the need to break the glass of a fire alarm but nobody was being told, except for myself.  I placed one hand on the door. It felt natural to want to go inside - I felt foolish but needed another mind to share this dilemma. Then I noticed the alarm-voice had changed its message again.  How long for, I don’t know. 

“Descend to Level One and await further instructions”. I didn’t want to go.  Damn the voice, it’s a joke - no, an error in the system.  A test probably.  Everybody else knows about the test, but I missed the message. 

I felt so foolish, jumping from one square to the next in this reversed game of snakes and ladders.  There was no fire, no emergency, no alarm even.  It was just a voice coming from a speaker, words and tones and vibrations of dead air. But as I approached the stairs, I noticed a heavy stress in the syllables - a nearly-human touch - to urge its listener to act on them. 

I found myself descending.  It felt natural to be in accordance with those words.  My footsteps took on a purposeful spring as if I knew what I was doing.

Then I reached Level One and emerged in the lobby: a carbon-copy of the one above.  I felt a precarious reassurance that the voice - again - was telling me to await further instructions.  I was making progress through this maze, and for now I need take no action.

I began to feel like I knew the alarm-voice.  We’d been through so much together.  After this is all over we’d go for a coffee and laugh at all the good times we had. 

I craned my neck to find the source of the voice - it was above me but beyond the false ceiling so I could not see exactly where.  My attention moved to the magnolia’d plaster near the silent lifts.  There was an “ALARM PANEL” which housed a single, blinking red light.  There were switches which could only be turned with a key, set to “ENABLED”.  There was also an area covered with small holes, with an icon of a telephone receiver above. 

As I looked at it, I wondered what I would say into it. Again, the voice changed its message.  I felt disembodied as - once again - I had to buy into a game.  Were the stakes too high?  Did I have the power to go against this new round?  I had been dealt a hand, and now I must use it or throw it away.  But where was I?  I had little left, and little to lose.  All eyes were on me, and I had to make my play.

Of course, I did what the alarm-voice told me to do.  I was no longer afraid or unsure, I had my orders and I knew my place, what else could I do?  It was easy.

I approached Room Two - on my right.  I felt a sharp pain in my stomach and became breathless.  My jaw clamped and I felt blood surging into my hands. Room Two was on fire, I knew.  The voice had told me that.  I could only see darkness through the glass partition of the door, but it had to be true. There was nobody else about, only the alarm-voice above and behind me, urging me on.  It was up to me, there was no other option.  Was I capable?  Would I be in terrible danger? 

Staring into the darkness, I could see no form, no depth, and I could read no threat so I put the back of one hand on the door.  I don’t know where I learned to do this, or why it was important to do when fighting fires.  There was no sensation of heat from the glass, so I leaned softly against the door until it opened a crack.  I remained still, trying to sense any threat in the air from the room but could detect none.

Then I was inside.  I propped the door open with one foot: my means of escape.  The voice followed me into the room, still playing the same message.  As I sought to find a sense of direction in the dim interior, I found a chair within arm’s reach to prop the door open.  I did not want to let it close - the voice was my guide, I needed its companionship.

My eyes adjusted.  There were wooden boards and shapes of steel littered about, as though construction was in progress.  There was a dim source of light on my left about 20 feet away.  I thought it might help me to orient myself, so I approached it. I found myself in a kitchen just like the one two floors above where I had first heard the alarm-voice which now - allowed to roam into the room with me - had seemed to take on a more urgent tone, and I took this as encouragement. 

The fire was in here somewhere, and I had to fight it.  But I could not see the danger the voice was broadcasting. On one wall was a cold, bulbous fire extinguisher.  I placed my hands around it and tugged it free from its bindings.  It felt snug and powerful in my arms.  I placed it down on a sideboard, and as I did so I felt wetness soak my sleeve.  The sideboard was drenched, and it was clear it was leaking from a tap nearby. I turned around in sudden fear that the fire could be behind me and as I did so, my sleeve snagged on something. 

In shock and dread, I jumped back and it was fortunate I did, because a shower of pin-prick sparks exploded out of thin air above the sideboard.  Then there was a sharp smell, and a furious crackling and the scene in front of me was ablaze in an instant.  An amputated kettle cord spasmed and struck like a cobra, and now the room was lit by jagged flashes like the handiwork of a crazy projectionist. I had retreated to the far wall without thought, and was staring, dumbstruck. 

Now there was no recorded voice from the lobby, only continuous staccato chirps of electronic terror.

I should get out.  Run for the stairwell and breathe the fresh air of the street, but responsibility was strong in my veins.  I couldn’t make my legs leave, they were resolute. I knew not to use the the red fire extinguisher.  The vicious snarls of electricity and livid spit-balls of water as it instantly boiled were grim signs that more water would not do. 

Breathlessly, I searched for an alternative. By now the building seemed to be in motion around me.  Muffled voices blended together with irregular footsteps as people responded to an unlikely emergency.  I was here alone with a storm of my creation, and the lightning must be stopped. As I hovered in the doorway, desperate for the light it offered, I found a wall panel marked “POWER”.  There was a switch marked “ISOLATE” - another of those key-switches - but perhaps because of the construction work the key was still present.  As I reached for the key, deathly-blue flashes lit the room around me.  The key felt cold, solid, impermeable to danger within my fingertips.

As I stood outside in the designated area, feeling fresh air against my skin, I slowly adjusted to the carefree cameraderie as we waited to be let back into the building.  It wasn’t until later that I thought it strange that the alarms I heard on the way out were the continuous metallic “ding-a-ling” kind.