Drain: Fridge Defrost

Then the drain sighed.

Eleanor was seventy-three. She had outlived Tom, her sister, and two goldfish named Crouton and Biscuit. She was not prone to fancy. But as she stood there, watching the drain with the intensity of a naturalist observing a new species, she noticed something else. The ice maker, which had not made ice since the Clinton administration, clicked on. A single, perfect cube fell into an empty tray. fridge defrost drain

Not a song, exactly. More like a low, wet hum, the kind of sound a seashell makes when you hold it to a child’s ear and lie about the ocean. Eleanor first noticed it at 3:17 AM, standing barefoot on the cold linoleum, the refrigerator’s light drawing a perfect rectangle of sterile white across her face. She’d come down for water, a habit left over from nights when her husband, Tom, would snore loud enough to rattle the windows. Now the house was quiet. Too quiet. Then the drain sighed