The Doorbell That Isn't

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a doorbell — one clean chime — and then nothing at all)
You're already halfway out of bed before you think.

[Verse 1]
The doorbell. At this hour. And you're up, and you're at the landing,
and the porch light's off, and the street's empty, and the road is wet,
and there is nobody at the door and there was never anybody
and the chime is still sitting in your ears like it's still ringing.
You check anyway. Of course you check. You always check.
You'd feel ridiculous not checking, and you feel ridiculous checking.

[Chorus]
The doorbell that isn't. The phone that didn't ring.
The kettle you never put on, whistling in the kitchen.
Footsteps on the landing with a weight and a rhythm,
water running somewhere in a house with the taps off.
The doorbell that isn't. Household sounds.
Your own house, doing its business, without any of it happening.

[Verse 2]
And it's always domestic, that's what gets me — always small.
Never a symphony, never a stranger's language, never the sea.
It's the sounds your building makes. The knock. The click. The tap.
The exact vocabulary of a person falling asleep at home.
Whatever's doing this is working from your own material.
It has been listening to this house for years.

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
And if you live alone, the check takes longer. That's just true.
You put the hall light on. You look at the actual door.
You do the round of the rooms you'd never admit to doing.
And then you get back in, and you are colder than you were,
and the bed has lost the shape it had. That's the real cost.
Not the fear. The having to warm the bed again.

[Chorus]

[Outro]
(the wet street, a car passing, far off)
Nobody. Obviously nobody.
Go back to bed.