Edge of Reason

A car alarm kept me up at night, and it went off with frivolous spontaneity for the next day. Our indignant neighbours stopped my housemate Emily the next evening. "Fix your alarm."
Our alarm?
Were we the perpetrators? The cause for disruption of friendly relations?
We hung our heads, repented in sack cloth and ashes.
There was no immediate solution to our problem. The handyman would come in a few days. Emily promptly bought small bags of chocolates for our neighbours to make amends. Rachel, however, descended into madness. The alarming wail pierced our hours like a banshee. It was too much.

A dangerous determination settled into her features. She would make it stop. By Aslan's mane, she'd make it stop.

She took a bash at the alarm box with a broom, cut the wires, and pulled a small plastic thing off the wall.
Not a sound.
"It is finished," she declared to me in the kitchen and put the scissors away.
"The internet doesn't work," I said.
She stared at me. "No."
"Yes."

She'd cut the telephone line.

                               The handyman finally arrived and dismantled the alarm box.

Rachel watched. 

On Tuesday the man came to fix the internet.  

I handed him the small plastic thing and explained about the alarm. "My housemate pulled this off."

He weighed it thoughtfully in his hands. "Not a good day for her, was it?"