He could still not understand how Sarah managed to sleep through all of the night time distractions. To him, the heat and noise was unbearable. For all the good it did, the damn fan with its persistent, nerve racking symphony of squeaks, rattles and grinds caused him more torment than it was worth.

As he lay there sweating, he listened to the squeak, the rattle, the whir, then the squeak again, the rattle again and the constant whir, Whir, Whir, until something finally snapped inside him. With a muffled cry of rage and frustration, Mel leaped from his bed and in the darkness made a grab for the fan. Picking it up by the heavy pedestal base, he threw it as hard as he could across the room. The electrical cord, becoming taut behind the now airborne fan, snapped loose from the wall outlet, the tension causing it to whip past Mel's face as it followed the flight of the fan. The large, double prongs of the old plug slapped sharply against his cheek as they flew past, leaving a pair of parallel scratches, a full three inches long, running from just below his right ear to the edge of his mouth.

This sudden and unexpected pain made Mel even more angry, but the resounding crash resulting from the fan slamming into the far wall made him feel somewhat better. Unfortunately, the noise was enough to awaken Sarah, who, as expected, was not exactly pleased with his choice of nocturnal exercise.

His own anger somewhat abated by the assumed destruction of his adversary, Mel turned on a bedroom light to survey the damage, which brought forth another series of irritated cries from Sarah. With more important things on his mind than placating a cranky wife, Mel ignored her outburst and went over to where the fan was laying face down near the wall. Surprisingly, the fan appeared basically unscathed, although when he picked it up, a sizeable section of the protective wire cage fell off, leaving a good portion of the ten inch, metal blades exposed. The wall had a deep gouge in it from the force of the fan's impact and on self examination, his right cheek was oozing blood from the narrow pair of wounds. Further probing proved them to be painful, but not deep.

Still frustrated, but to a somewhat lesser degree, he turned off the bedroom light and carried the bruised, but apparently unharmed fan into the bathroom and set it on the counter, near the sink. He then spent a few minutes dabbing peroxide around his facial cuts before returning to bed.

Mel awoke the next morning in a foul mood after another mostly sleepless, sweltering night. He decided that even with the noise, the fan was apparently necessary to assure him of even a minor amount of comfort during the night. There were always ear plugs, he supposed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he put his hands to his face and winced as he rediscovered his scratched cheek. Gingerly probing the injury with his fingers, he staggered over to the bathroom.

The fan was sitting where he had left it on the counter. Mel stared at it for a moment, debating whether he should turn it on or not, as he felt trickles of sweat creeping down his back. It was already hot and after all, the fan's noises weren't quite as annoying during the day. His decision made for him by the stifling heat of the small, windowless bathroom, Mel reached over and plugged in the fan. What he failed to notice on the plug was the small amount of his own dried blood which coated the end of each prong.