The Tell-Tale Heart in My Dryer

Thud Thud Thud Thud.
     It started just this week, a knocking in my laundry room, rhythmic in its pattern and consistent with its drone. I was alone at first when I loaded the dryer, my girls away with Grandma and my husband off to work. Tasked with readying his vacation wardrobe, I fancied a belt or balled up sleeve causing the noise, an annoyance but something I could ignore for the day.
      Today I was setting about to do piles of wash, four suitcases home from weeks of travel and there it is again. Thud  Thud  Thud  Thud. It is regular, this beating drum, predictable and loud though not altogether unpleasant at first. I park myself to work, content to feel a cool breeze while I while away some time alone. My girls are home again, playing about the house and yard, and I can hear them through the window teasing each other. Shortly though, they are then coming to tell me about the disagreement. They open the door to my office and the beating gets stronger. I think they must hear it but they carry on, lamenting how one was playing in the dirt, slung mud into blond curls and dumped water onto a dress. I shoo them out again into the sun, trying to pay bills and find immunization records for daycare for a simple few hours of respite.
      Leaving the door ajar, I attempt to turn back to the task at hand, distracted now with a fuse lit. I hear the noise louder and it becomes the ticking of a clock, this Thud  Thud  THUD  THUD. I try to continue on, typing directions for an insulin pump and meter (that even I don't fully understand), a management system for a few hours of play, trying to keep it simple and hoping her body will maintain itself in my absence. I see the time and feel the need to rush, the frustration gripping my own heart, the fatigue from a sleepless night fogging my brain and slowing me down. My thoughts are rushing from all directions: remember to call the insurance to protect the investment- $10grand is a lot to lose if the devices get lost; those bills are paid, now close that tab; a new email is in: check out the new house design. The time clips along with that THUD THUD  THUD THUD and I can see through the screen a dispute again and though equally as simple, now I am counting down the moments until meltdown for my girls.
        I call them in and close the computer. Leave the office in the lurch and move on to lunch. The tell-tale THUD THUD THUD THUD is duller upstairs though it echoes still, squeezing my stomach with anxiety that the day is getting the better of me. I am hungry and nauseous and overheated and overwrought, watching muddy arms and wet clothes traipse into my already messy dining room, climb demandingly onto chairs and begin to chatter ferociously. Their voices are white noise now, frying my brain in the background. I've probably had too much caffeine, my nerves being frayed as they are. Was it the coffee or the Coke that makes this sound grate me so? The girls must hear it, must know that I am balanced on the razor's edge.
       Then it begins in stereo, the banging of forks on the table, the calling for food in such a primitive way, the beating of the drum for each of the girls mocking me with the sounds from below. I can feel myself tipping, over the side of sanity now, no balance left or inkling of patience reserved. Their little heads sway like pendulums, tongues clicking in mouths like metronomes to the beat that emanates through my home and my heart. It's all too much! "Enough," I scream in the kitchen, hands gripping the counter like claws as I lose my cool, my reality spinning in the humidity. Bemused, those three little heads look at me, eyes innocent and mouths full of macaroni. The clatter of silverware fades away with polite scoops, the babble and blather drowned by gulps of chocolate milk. The dryer lets out a final bellow of a BUZZ and the Tell-Tale Heart is dead.
       One deep breath in, maybe I need another Coke, one slow breath out. Today is a day just like any other day. Still, maybe I'll roll in the windows and turn on the air conditioner. And maybe I'll take the next load out to dry on the clothesline...