States of Emergency

Brad Johnson

The second time an Amber Alert shocks my spine into my shoulders and vibrates my phone across the counter, I switch the setting to mute. If everything’s an emergency, there’s no emergency.

I tell Vito I like how Prop 65 mandates restaurants and strip malls affix warnings on their walls listing possible on-site chemicals known to cause cancer. He says the warnings are everywhere, affixed on every building. They’re so ubiquitous they mean nothing. Besides, he says, what good is a label informing you that consuming 700,000 gallons of parking structure cement might make you sick? You need the state to tell you that?

Rather than dying silently, fire alarms in my house are wired together, and all go off when the batteries in one fades, which only happens after three a.m. Their wails ambush my sleep, and I run to the staircase where my daughter stands in her pajamas, her hair a mess of question marks. She holds the kitchen chair as I unscrew each alarm, leaving the plastic casings hanging n from the ceiling cords like a clone’s disembodied head, and I tuck my daughter back in bed, knowing she’ll be older in the morning, aged with the knowledge fire alarms don’t always mean fire Sometimes they mean the siren broke, and sleep’s easier if you just unplug the warnings

26 Johnso