It must be summer

Ping!

It's three forty-five in the morning, and with that sound I'm instantly awake, if not precisely alert, and already well on my way to being really cranky.

I know that sound came from my harp, but I don't immediately understand how. For a moment I think stupidly of bugs careening into the soundboard, then of a scene in The Haunting in which a harp begins to play by itself. Then I realize a) I'm being an idiot, b) the air conditioning isn't on yet, and c) I left the window open.

Grumbling, I heave myself out of bed and shuffle over to the harp, knowing already what I'll find. Yep, here it is... the remains of a broken string, up near the top. I've been lucky with this harp - I've had it for about five years and this is only the second broken string I've had. Strings always break sooner or later, sometimes because of the wear and tear of playing and sometimes because of fluctuations in temperature. (Apparently it was the latter that did in this one.) So it's a perfectly natural thing for a string to do. It's merely unfortunate that it reached the breaking point so early in the morning.

Makes a hell of an alarm clock, though.