F-0023 A letter asking to replace only the alarm's battery

(Said to be a copy of a written inquiry that reached the maker’s customer desk. The redactions are from the copy.)

Dear Sirs,

The cold days continue; I trust you are all keeping well. Please forgive this sudden letter. My name is ◯◯◯◯, and I live in Onomichi City, Hiroshima Prefecture. I have long used one of your smoke alarms.

The one on my bedroom ceiling is a unit of model ◯◯◯◯. I copied this from the warranty slip, so I believe it is correct. About ten years ago my daughter and her husband came with a stepladder and put up two of them, this one and one in the kitchen.

Around the end of the year, it began to give a short beep — pi — in the middle of the night. I found the manual and read that this is the sound it makes when the battery is running low. It also said that pressing the button runs a test, so I pressed it, and it said, “Normal.” It is about this voice that I am writing to you.

The first time I pressed it, I thought: now, where have I heard that voice. After that I could not leave it alone. The manual says once a month is enough, but it became once a week, and now I press it once in the morning and once at night. The “Normal” voice has, little by little, come to resemble the voice of my wife, who passed away the summer before last. Each time I press it, it seems to come a little closer. If you call it an old man’s imagination, then that is what it is; and I know very well that a letter like this must be a nuisance.

My daughter came home for New Year’s, so without giving a reason, I had her press it once. She says: it’s an ordinary machine voice, there’s nothing wrong with it. We were listening side by side in the same room, and to me, that morning too, it sounded like my wife’s voice. I have not spoken of this to my daughter since.

My wife spent most of her last year resting in the bedroom. That machine on the ceiling, it follows, listened to her voice from closer than anything else in this house. Afterward I searched the house, but there is not one recording of her voice — not on video, not on the telephone. Of photographs there are many. She was never comfortable with machines.

What I wish to ask is these two things. One: can the battery for this model be replaced by an amateur, an old man? It would help me to know the part number and where it can be bought. The other: if I put in a new battery, will the test voice stay as it is now? That is my one worry, and each time that short sound rings in the night, my chest shrinks sooner than the battery does.

The manual also says the unit itself should be replaced after about ten years. I will say it honestly: I do not intend to replace the unit. As for its duty of warning of fire — if it no longer rings, then it no longer rings; I do not mind. So long as the test voice stays as it is, that is enough.

I have written nothing but selfish things. There is no hurry about a reply. I am enclosing a stamped envelope; if you could let me know about the battery alone, I would be grateful. In this cold season, please take good care of yourselves.

Respectfully yours,

P.S. On the night of January ◯, without my pressing anything, it said “Normal,” once. I was awake, and I heard it from my bed. It was the ordinary machine voice. It was not my wife. That, if anything, set me at ease, and I slept. Because then I understood: only when I press it myself is it my wife.