Hank came home from work in a foul mood that day. Something that jerk Peterson had said to him as he passed him on the way to the staff room refrigerator. Ruminating in his head to recall exact words as he turned the car into the quiet little cul-de-sac where he lived, he found that he couldn’t remember at all the comment that Peterson had made to him. By the time Hank had pulled into the driveway of his three bedroom house and parked the car, he determined that it didn’t matter at all the exact words Peterson used, but rather it was the way he used them.

The tone of voice, the disrespect! 

The gall of that bastard, Hank thought to himself. I ought to give that jerk a piece of my mind! His mood was still afoul as he unlocked the white front door and stepped inside. 

Nancy was sitting in the living room when he walked in. 

‘Hello Dear, how was your day at work?’ She asked, smiling. 

‘It was fine Nance.’ He paused. He told himself before I wouldn’t bring up the Peterson thing to her. That he wouldn’t carry such negative thoughts with him into the house. That the belonged out there; In the office, or the park where he would go everyday to eat his lunch in solitude on the right side of the same wooden bench, watching the people as they walked by. Sometimes he would try to hold their gaze to see who would break off first. It was a little game he created for himself, and found it to be rather amusing. There was only one person who could hold his gaze without averting their eyes or pretending something else caught their attention. And that was the woman he married, Nancy. 

She sat there now in front of him. Looking up at him with her big blue eyes. He found himself drowning in them. Little whirlpools he foolishly dipped his toes into and now found himself caught. Ensnared forever by their beauty until death. He was aware of himself now. Standing before his wife in the middle of the room. Her before him. The fireplace behind him. The beige suit he wore with the striped tie Nancy picked out for him fastened around his neck that pushed tight against the bulge of his throat every time he swallowed.

The briefcase he held in his left hand. It was a reddish leather, and filled with documents. Recently he had noticed that rust was beginning to form on some of the metal buckles. The discovery of the rust on his favorite briefcase bothered him immensely. But now, looking at Nancy the tension that he held in his face and in his hands began to erode. 

She was sitting on  the couch. With her hands in her lap. With her legs together and knees tilted to one side. She wore the pink dress with small red roses printed all over.  Hank loved the touch of that fabric, although he never expressed that to her. Her yellow hair fell gracefully on both sides of her face, framing it like a landscape painting of an autumn day he saw in a museum gallery they visited together, years ago. Nancy looked up smiling at Hank, and waited for him to continue speaking. Gazing into his eyes, unrelenting. 

‘…It was fine, Nance.’ He repeated, softly.

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No, he would never bring up his squabbles with Peterson into their home. He would not sully the air of his home with the name of that person. 

Instead he bent over to place his red leather briefcase down beside him on the rug of the living room floor. Then took his brown shoes off one at a time. Without a word he went to her on the couch and sat beside her. Nancy put her arms around her husband and lent into him, placing the top of her head between his chin and chest and followed the rising and falling motions of his breathing.

He could think of nothing anymore. Not of his job, or his commute to and from home. Of the people he saw in the park at lunch. Not of the children at play in the neighborhoods he drove through. He could not think of his house, the contents that were contained within it, of the red leather briefcase or the brown shoes or the couch he was sitting on. He was no longer aware of himself. His suit and tie, the hair that grew out of his skin, the teeth that jutted out of the gums of his mouth. The eyes with which he saw things, the ears that fed him sounds. All of these things were gone to him now.

The only thing left to him, that he could perceive was Nancy. The smell of her hair. The the warmth of her body, the feel of her pink dress fabric. He wished so much that he could open his eyes and see her and hear the sound of her gentle breathing as she rested. All he could do was envision her his mind until it became a whole picture. For a moment he was basked in the feeling of that peace. 

But something broke through. It was a sound of whirring and clanking. It became so loud until the picture of Nancy began to fade away. The sound was coming from the Kitchen. Their kitchen, in their house. Yes, they were sitting on the couch together. He was Hank. The sense of self crashing back down on him like a ton of bricks. Hank threw open his eyes and lurched forward on the couch. 

‘By God Nancy! what the hell is that noise!?’ 

Nancy let out a little yawn. 

‘I forgot to tell you Dear, a man came by the house today. A salesman with a new product. I know you told me not to talk to those people but, when he showed me. Well, They just make the most marvelous of inventions these days. Advances in sciences he said. You’ll see!’ She said delightedly. 

The machine entered the living room. It rolled in on heavy caterpillar tracks. It was like a small armor tank, but only the size of a beagle dog. It had no legs, nor arms. It’s metal body was covered in a shiny chrome finish. What could be considered the ‘head’ of the thing was centered in the middle of the apparatus. On the top of it’s head were valves and wires and small blinking lights of red and green. From beneath it’s metal frame there was attached a nozzle that came downwards and forward. And from the tip of that nozzle came the horrifying whirring sounds that sucked Hank out from the blissful peace he was experiencing on the couch just moments before. 

‘It’s some kind of robot?’ he said to his wife, unsure. 

‘It’s a vacuum cleaner dear.’

‘Doesn't look like any cleaner I’ve seen before.’

‘It’s modern.’ She beamed. ‘The man said they would be in every home in the country in the new few years. And when he showed me how it worked and what it could do I just had to get it! Oh Hank I hope you don’t mind. But wait until you see!’

The lights on the head of the cleaner lit up and made beeping sounds. The thing was trying to think. It rolled its little tank body off the rug and over the hardwood floor, scuffing it. It tried to collect the dust underneath the window table, its hulking frame banged repeatedly on the table legs, knocking over picture frames and glass ornaments. When it finished it returned to the center of the room, crushing the red leather briefcase. It began to vacuum up the laces of Hank’s brown shoes. 

Hank finally remembered what it was Peterson had said to him earlier that day.