I’m stuck up here on the roof week after week. Does anybody really notice me? I’m here on guard duty, my nose sticking out further than Pinnocio, waiting for that merest sniff of charred air. If you burn the toast or leave the roast too long, then I will send a warning. I’ll be completely annoying, I’ll beep and pierce and impinge on your sensitive hearing until you have to do something. But you’ll encounter a dilemma, because I’m safe and out of the way up here and as soon as I start shouting you won’t have anything that can reach me. You’ll have to be inventive, drag table out and stand on top of that, it might be a bit shaky you might sway from side to side and reach up to me as If I wil hold all your weight, but I’m just screwed into the ceiling by two flimsy self tappers, little worms of thread that  are impaled into the plaster board so don’t put your faith in me. 

I see all the goings on here through my red eye vision, constantly blinking. I hear all the goings on. The fights the divisions the make ups and the love making sessions. I could be a camera on your life if you wanted. Otherwise I just sit here dormant, stiff and brittle waiting to prove myself. My only real friend in the world is the battery – he didn’t know he was in for a life time of trickle charge – he thought he was going to have a much more exiting life as the battery back up for a foot pedal in a rock band – think of it; world travel, the music, the girls! Instead he’s almost in solitary confinement in my belly. I’ve thought about moving on, but these self tappers constrain me in a straight-jacket fit, there’s no budging. Only when my friend the battery dies and I  begin to weep constantly do they come and operate. The cover gets a brief respite on the table while the battery is changed sometimes when they’re not organised it can be as long as five minutes- five minutes in a lifetime, that’s not much to write home about. Maybe I should just let out a quick string of  beeps now, to let them know I’m still here…