The Woman with No Name

She unlocked the large sliding glass door with her small silver key, and pulled with a firm grip of her right hand. The door moved slowly against the determination. A rush of air blew back her long brown hair, and the cold air conditioning sent her body through a wave of goose bumps.

"Hello New House," she called inside, walking through the door opening. Her voice echoed through the chambers she would come to know as home.

Stepping inside, she heard reverberations of her voice answering her. The faltering sound in the large dwelling caught her off guard. She walked across the living room to the sunroom, just off the backyard door. She closed the sliding glass door behind her, using extra effort to no avail against the heavy glass door. A few tugs closed the door, leaving the heat and humidity of July outdoors.

The white carpet in the den had been visited by the carpet contractors, and pieces of leaves had not yet penetrated the glass barrier. The carpet looked to her like fancy muslin. She had sat on the floor previously, and found the composition of the material pleasant on the skin. Her aged white Reeboks looked grimy against the newly laundered and pristine carpet.

She walked across the room to check the automatic thermostat. She had read the instruction booklet, and attempted to vary the temperature setting in the dwelling to coincide with the need for midday hours of summer. The thermostat was the most complicated she had ever set: days hours, minutes. She hoped it was set properly, because the room seemed quite comfortable.

"Don't mess with perfection," she commented to her echo.

She opened the white door panel of the box on the wall, and read aloud, to convince herself, "70 degrees." She had mastered this technology on first encounter. She was pleased with herself, even though she had actually done nothing.

She walked the rooms of the empty house, surveying the kitchen, two bathrooms, and three bedrooms, and large living area with an unnecessary fireplace and mantle. Then she walked to the bedroom that would be her office, her study, her writer's library. She couldn't resist laying on the cold hardwood floor. Still overheated from her previous outdoor activity, she appreciated the floor, the off white walls, the textured ceiling, and the wonderful ceiling fan. She got up, flipped the fan switch to on, and sat with her back to a wall so that she could see out a front window, looking onto green grass, and an asphalt black shiny street when a man was walking his bulldog.

"Hey Siri. Play "Hey Bulldog" by the Beatles." Siri responded with an almost immediate bass beat as the song began.

"Sheepdog, standing in the rain.
Bullfrog, doing it again.

more to come. . .