The security door was wrought iron. Not that cheap stuff you can get at the local national chain home supply store. Specially ordered stuff. Thick. Strong. Ornate. The door behind it, steel core. Double dead bolts. Chain. All the windows had bars on them too, matching ornate wrought iron bars. There were thorn bushes in front and cacti on the sides and in the back, all sitting under the windows. As if the bars weren't enough.
Security cameras blinked and recorded and watched and saw and saved 24/7/365. Hard drives in what would normally have been a bedroom stored all the data. Nothing happening around the outside of the home escaped their notice. They were eternally vigilant.
The home had an alarm. Which, considering everything else, one could have probably guessed. It had pressure settings tied to each of the windows. Lasers protected the doors, once activated, waiting for something, anything, to try and cross them. Motion sensors in every room could be remotely activated by something as simple as a cell phone text. There were no pets to accidentally trigger them.
The windows weren't bullet proof. There is no such thing really. But they were 'bullet resistant'. Provided a bullet could weave it's way in between the ornate wrought iron bars protecting the windows that is. If. In that instance, the aforementioned bullet, having fortunately made it past this obstacle would be 'resisted' by the window's glass.
Guns were in every room, strategically placed but not obvious to the eye. All were easy to get to. Loaded. Cleaned. Regularly. Ready for use at a moment's notice.
His name....was a matter of some debate. Harold to some, Charles to others. He had a passport that listed his name as Albert Rothstein. No synagogue in the area had ever heard of him. A driver's license under the name of Alphonse Monroe indicated that he was not an organ donor.
Things were clean, meticulously so, in every room. It was almost as if all the precautions that had been made to keep others out had managed to, at the same time, seal the house against dust and dirt. And yet, if one were to make it into the home...if one were to float through the living room and make towards the hall, say, as a disembodied spirit, avoiding the motion sensors, making sure not to set off any alarms, one might turn down the hall and head towards the master bedroom where a bag of Rold Gold pretzels lay on the floor, it's contents spilling out of it in a neat, orderly fashion, as if it were a cornucopia. Brown pretzels, twisted into their instantly recognizable shape, sprinkled with white beads of salt that sparkled when the morning sunlight filtered in through the window and lit upon them.
If one were to float above the scene, one might see a pair of shoes attached to a pair of feet attached themselves to a pair of legs covered in a pair of oversized 'comfort jeans', sprawled out on the floor. The way everything was arranged, one had to drift over the bed to see the rest of it. the faded sweatshirt, the arms, the body, lying face down on the ground. The rumpled covers of the bed and the presence of pretzel crumbs added to the scene. The TV was still on. A shopping channel showed the latest in Austrian crystal for your dinner set. You too could entertain like a European aristocrat.
Harold Charles Albert Alphonse wasn't watching anymore. He lie still, perfectly still, eternally still, there on the floor of his bedroom, a bedroom protected by security camera, cacti, wrought iron bars and bullet resistant glass. A bedroom with five hidden, loaded firearms, motion sensors and preset pressure sensors on the window tied to his master alarm. And what remained of Harold Charles Albert Alphonse hovered above what had been Harold Charles Albert Alphonse, taking it all in, trying to wrap what was left of its intellect around the notion of a lone pretzel, accidentally, securely, perfectly, lodged in a windpipe.
Copyright M.R. McCaffery, 2011. All rights reserved.
Security cameras blinked and recorded and watched and saw and saved 24/7/365. Hard drives in what would normally have been a bedroom stored all the data. Nothing happening around the outside of the home escaped their notice. They were eternally vigilant.
The home had an alarm. Which, considering everything else, one could have probably guessed. It had pressure settings tied to each of the windows. Lasers protected the doors, once activated, waiting for something, anything, to try and cross them. Motion sensors in every room could be remotely activated by something as simple as a cell phone text. There were no pets to accidentally trigger them.
The windows weren't bullet proof. There is no such thing really. But they were 'bullet resistant'. Provided a bullet could weave it's way in between the ornate wrought iron bars protecting the windows that is. If. In that instance, the aforementioned bullet, having fortunately made it past this obstacle would be 'resisted' by the window's glass.
Guns were in every room, strategically placed but not obvious to the eye. All were easy to get to. Loaded. Cleaned. Regularly. Ready for use at a moment's notice.
His name....was a matter of some debate. Harold to some, Charles to others. He had a passport that listed his name as Albert Rothstein. No synagogue in the area had ever heard of him. A driver's license under the name of Alphonse Monroe indicated that he was not an organ donor.
Things were clean, meticulously so, in every room. It was almost as if all the precautions that had been made to keep others out had managed to, at the same time, seal the house against dust and dirt. And yet, if one were to make it into the home...if one were to float through the living room and make towards the hall, say, as a disembodied spirit, avoiding the motion sensors, making sure not to set off any alarms, one might turn down the hall and head towards the master bedroom where a bag of Rold Gold pretzels lay on the floor, it's contents spilling out of it in a neat, orderly fashion, as if it were a cornucopia. Brown pretzels, twisted into their instantly recognizable shape, sprinkled with white beads of salt that sparkled when the morning sunlight filtered in through the window and lit upon them.
If one were to float above the scene, one might see a pair of shoes attached to a pair of feet attached themselves to a pair of legs covered in a pair of oversized 'comfort jeans', sprawled out on the floor. The way everything was arranged, one had to drift over the bed to see the rest of it. the faded sweatshirt, the arms, the body, lying face down on the ground. The rumpled covers of the bed and the presence of pretzel crumbs added to the scene. The TV was still on. A shopping channel showed the latest in Austrian crystal for your dinner set. You too could entertain like a European aristocrat.
Harold Charles Albert Alphonse wasn't watching anymore. He lie still, perfectly still, eternally still, there on the floor of his bedroom, a bedroom protected by security camera, cacti, wrought iron bars and bullet resistant glass. A bedroom with five hidden, loaded firearms, motion sensors and preset pressure sensors on the window tied to his master alarm. And what remained of Harold Charles Albert Alphonse hovered above what had been Harold Charles Albert Alphonse, taking it all in, trying to wrap what was left of its intellect around the notion of a lone pretzel, accidentally, securely, perfectly, lodged in a windpipe.
Copyright M.R. McCaffery, 2011. All rights reserved.
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