Everything changed in a microscopic moment. It was between when the anesthesiologist began the trickly drip-plop-drop of propofol from the IV into my bloodstream, and waking up, I believe. I came to, on a gurney behind a curtain like a bedsheet. The world sounded different. Everything looked the same, but there was an ineffaceable ring tone sound. It was dull and distant, an unbroken bloop —like the noise electric stovetops make when you set the pan down wrong on a burner.