Short Fiction
other rooms already were. Even if her home would house a prisoner, at least it was in respectable shape. Except for the carpet. Exactly three days had passed since the cream Berber was vacuumed. Charlotte vacuumed exactly every three days. Really, she wanted to do it daily. To be tidy. However, daily vacuuming wore good carpet too quickly. Three days kept the Berber from wearing but still allowed her to keep it free from dirt. Two days had passed, though. It was time for the carpet to be cleaned. Hurrying through the dining room, with the walnut dining table and freshly washed place settings arranged for the evening meal, Charlotte fetched the reliable metal vacuum cleaner from its closet in the kitchen. Not cheap plastic like the worthless more modern models that threw more dust than they picked up. No. This white and beige workhorse had been her mother's. Her mother used it for years before she passed, making sure Charlotte understood the difference a good vacuum cleaner made in a house. The vacuum cleaner roared to life at Charlotte's instruction and she shouldered it around the living room in circles of decreasing size. Of course, she carefully and gingerly circumnavigated the furniture inhabiting the room to avoid knocking anything askew. Then, after pausing for any possible dust kicked up to become complacent and settle, Charlotte repeated the task in the opposite direction. Once satisfied that all marks in the carpet were erased, Charlotte returned the vacuum cleaner to its post in the kitchen closet to silently await its next duty. She paused to take a breath after she sealed the closet door, but just then the grandfather clock in the dining room sounded. She immediately recalled the next chores to be performed, but she chided herself. The schedule would have to adapt, she reminded herself, since a prisoner was due to arrive. The letter of notification was on the kitchen table, by itself. Charlotte placed it there when she reread it that morning after Ward whistled his way off to work. She reread it again and again, just to make sure she understood. That she had it all right. The paper itself was a printed form letter. Only her and Ward's information and the specifics had been added in blanks by a typewriter. As run of the mill as a jury duty notice, only it notified that the state would be requisitioning the use of her home for the purpose of providing shelter to a convict. The prisons were impossibly overcrowded, the letter informed. Unable to determine any other immediate solution, the state had no choice but to place prisoners in private residences. Atticus Review│Get Lit: Round 1
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