The world outside of Sylvia’s window is screeching wildly, growing louder and louder. Freight trains come lurching towards her bedroom; great lumbering giants of industry gnashing the ground and clawing at the tracks below them, creeping towards her curtains. A soundtrack not without a choir; flocks of birds singing flat, ugly songs, devoid of melody and drenched with longing. Tangled guitar strings are the threads that wind themselves around her; some sort of awful scratchy sweater sending her to lunacy. Every phobia finds a voice, each one of them more grisly than the last. The ceiling begins falling towards her, like so many untuned pianos pushed from some invisible balcony. The floorboards of her room are littered with detached xylophone keys; swirling independently of a player, chipped and chiming in awful applause for the grotesque opera that she calls 3:00 AM.

It’s 3:00 AM and these foul symphonies are deafening. It seems as though with each passing moment some new orchestra charges recklessly through her doorway to shout profanities in the direction of her pillowcase, and to join the march around her bedposts. Percussions comprised of floating pots and pans make a racket without rest. A parade of worry builds behind her open eyes, prying her further from comfort’s side.

Sylvia’s thoughts pirouette across her mind, lose balance, and stumble; this ballet is not without audience. The streetlights bend towards her window to shine a spotlight on the spectacle inside of her room. Trees soon follow, scratching at the panes as if to gain entry to a sold out show. The willows now soullessly weep the words to long forgotten blues numbers. Fumbling tree branches bring the birds closer; oh these damn birds! Singing like each one of them is a priest at some exorcism, with the dynamic becoming louder and louder; backing vocals are provided by their brothers and sisters perched proudly on buzzing power-lines.

5:00 AM and Sylvia has had enough; she can no longer endure the weight of this production. The impossibly dominant static has churned into an incessant killing drone. She rises from her bed and rifles through her closet, pulling out a frayed sea-foam green pea coat. Sylvia anxiously puts the coat on; her hands shake violently as she buttons the coat up to the collar. The coat fits her like a coffin. She begins to gasp, her next breath won’t come. Suddenly the drone becomes subtle, soft, and ignorable. Her eyes close and she collapses onto her bedroom floor. Sylvia never has to hear a sad song again.