It's Now Safe
Savannah Grimes, having finished reading her many emails, slid her mouse over her Van Gogh's Starry Night mouse pad to guide the pointer to the lower left corner of the monitor's screen. Then she clicked on the START menu icon of the old Dell Dimension desktop computer, selected SHUT DOWN from the list of available options and waited patiently until the Windows 95 operating system informed her that it was safe to turn off her computer. Once the message was displayed across the screen in oversized orange letters, she pressed the POWER button on the tower, pushed back from the desk and wheeled herself into the kitchen.
The lakeside log cabin was eerily silent. This late in the year, not many people visited rural New England. The brightly colored autumn leaves that attracted tourists every October had already fallen to the ground. Also, most parents had taken their vacation time in the summer months when their children were home from school. Now that classes were back in session, few families visited the lake. Consequently, there were no shouting children at play, barking dogs or blaring music from weekend barbecues. Nor were there any motor boats, jet skis, ATVs, lawnmowers, chainsaws, or weed whackers to disturb the peace of the neighborhood.
Savannah was one of only a small group of residents who lived on Serenity Lake year-round, and during the late autumn and winter months, the place was as silent as the proverbial tomb. She did not mind either the quiet or the isolation of the small Vermont community. Truth be told, she preferred the peace of Sheffield Hills to the hustle and bustle of Boston. What she did miss about her former home in Massachusetts, however, was the life she once shared with Toby.
He's been dead almost ten years, she thought sadly.
Sometimes it seemed like only yesterday when she had last heard his infectious laughter, seen those blue eyes twinkling with humor or watched the ends of his mouth curl up in a mischievous grin. On the other hand, it more frequently felt like a lifetime since she had enjoyed the security of being in his arms or tasted his kisses on her lips.
It was after five o’clock when Savannah rolled over to the refrigerator and got out a bag of spring mix salad greens, a carton of grape tomatoes, a cucumber, a container of gorgonzola cheese crumbles and a bottle of Ken's Lite Honey Mustard salad dressing. As she added a handful of Texas toast croutons to her lonely dinner for one, she remembered all the wonderful meals she had prepared for Toby. She always enjoyed being a wife and homemaker and would have loved being a mother, but fate had not blessed her with children. Instead, it not only took from her the use of her legs, but it also deprived her of the love of her husband.
"I know you're not lost to me forever," the misty-eyed widow said, her eyes turning upward to heaven. "I know we'll be together in the end, but I miss you so much."
Not wanting to descend into the pit of self-pity, she wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and picked up her fork.
"I've got to stop feeling sorry for myself. I have to concentrate on what I have now rather than on what I've lost."
For one thing, the widowed woman had her financial independence, thanks to her husband's life insurance policy and the substantial settlement paid by the auto insurance carrier of the drunken man whose careless driving took both her husband's life and her ability to walk. For another, she had her house on the lake. It was something she and Toby once dreamt of owning: a modern, custom-built log cabin that would serve as a weekend and vacation home until they could retire and permanently move from Boston to Sheffield Hills.
She had also been blessed with a circle of good friends, nearly all of whom she made over the past nine years. While she never met them or even spoke to them except online, they were close friends nonetheless, people who did not see the wheelchair or know about the car accident that killed her young husband. With anonymous cyber friends, there was no pity, only impersonal messages on a computer screen, words without inflection and statements without sympathetic looks or gestures. When she was online with her friends, Savannah chatted about books, movies, politics, fashion, sports, current events and music. There were also jokes, cartoons and links to games and videos that went back and forth through the email.
From time to time, the topic of conversation turned to advancements in technology. Her online friends were always trying to improve the computers they were currently using. They were, after all, part of a generation that was addicted to hi-tech toys. Over the past decade, these people graduated from using floppy disks to CDs and DVDs, then from flash drives to storing their files in the cloud. They were forever in search of more memory, faster processors and newer—and hopefully more efficient—operating systems.
Invariably, someone would question Savannah about her computer.
"Oh, it's a Dell," she would simply reply and only add when pressed for details that it had a Pentium processor.
"A Pentium 4?"
"No, just a plain Pentium processor."
Her computer was nearly twenty years old and, as such, was manufactured at a time when Intel did not add numbers after its processors.
"You don't mean to tell me you're still running Windows 98!"
"No," she admitted truthfully. "It has Windows 95."
Savannah knew what her friends must think: that she lacked the funds to buy a newer computer. It was not a question of money, however. She simply did not want to change. She liked the computer she had. It was easy to use and reliable. It allowed her to send and receive emails and surf the internet without too much fear of getting one of the many viruses that were being written to exploit weaknesses in the newer Windows systems.
After finishing her salad, buttered roll and fruit cup, she rolled her chair to the sink and began washing her dishes. Afterward, she went into the living room, turned on the television and slipped The Return of the King into her DVD player. As she watched the movie based on the third book of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, she thought about how much Viggo Mortensen reminded her of Toby. Was it the beard or was it something about his eyes?
Had she been less intent on comparing Aragorn to her late husband, she might have heard the window breaking in the basement or the footsteps on the cellar stairs. But she didn't.
Suddenly, the door flew open, and Savannah was torn from the fantasy world of hobbits, elves and wizards and thrust back into reality. There were no Orcs there, only men, but some men represented great danger.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" she cried in a strained, frightened voice.
"Jewelry. Money. Credit cards. Whatever else you got that's valuable."
"Okay. Only please don't hurt me."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
The man smiled, but it did not calm Savannah's fears.
Since the stranger was standing in the kitchen doorway, blocking her path to the phone, she saw no way of calling for help. It would be pointless to scream since the homes on either side of hers were closed up for the winter. She had to think fast if she hoped to survive the home invasion.
"I'll go get my purse," she said, heading toward the hall.
Once she was safely past the intruder, she wheeled herself into the combination den and computer room and locked the door behind her. The would-be burglar ran to the door and tried to force it open. Meanwhile, Savannah rolled to her desk and turned her computer on. It seemed like an eternity before the desktop appeared.
"Open up, or you'll be sorry, lady," he shouted, pounding on the door.
She opened Outlook Express and clicked on CREATE MAIL.
The intruder changed tactics.
"Look, I only want your money and valuables. I promise not to hurt you if you open the door."
Savannah's fingers rapidly danced across the keyboard.
"Someone has broken into my house," she wrote. "Hurry. Call 911. I'm in danger."
She then typed in her home address and sent the email message to everyone in her address book, praying someone would see it and act quickly.
"All right! You asked for it! When I get my hands on you, you're dead!"
With several vicious kicks, the enraged stranger broke down the door. Trying to flee from his wrath, she rolled her chair backward but soon found herself against the wall.
I'm trapped, she realized. There's no way for me to escape!
Her eyes frantically sought a weapon. If she were in the kitchen, living room, bathroom or bedroom, there would be several to choose from. But this was a den. There were no knives, fireplace pokers, screwdrivers, scissors or hammers, only an assortment of paperback novels, computer manuals, printer paper and miscellaneous office supplies.
The intruder took three menacing steps toward the terrified woman.
"Say your prayers, sweetheart!" he spat.
He lunged forward, intent on attacking the defenseless woman, and Savannah's wheelchair tipped over. She fell to the floor and tried to drag herself along the carpet with her arms. The intruder stood up, reached into his pocket and took out a switchblade. But as he raised his arm to strike the mortal blow, he became entangled in the Dell's power cord and tripped. Instinctively, his hands went out to break his fall, but he fell onto the computer with a resounding crash.
Smoke and sparks erupted from the rear of the tower, and the subsequent smell of burning flesh made Savannah gag. She shrieked as she watched the stranger writhe in the agony of electrocution. After several moments, he fell to the ground dead. Savannah put her head on her arm and wept tears of horror and relief.
* * *
"Are you sure you don't want us to call an ambulance to take you to the hospital, Mrs. Grimes?" the responding police officer asked after the coroner had removed the intruder's body. "You've been through quite an ordeal this evening. It might be best to have a doctor check you out."
"I'll be all right," Savannah assured him. "Thank you, anyway."
Once the police departed, she returned to the den to survey the damage.
"Well, I guess I have no choice but to get a new computer now."
Although she had expected to find a charred wreckage of fried electronic components, she discovered to her great joy and surprise that the computer was still in good working condition. She saw the familiar words IT'S NOW SAFE TO TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER spelled out on the screen in oversized orange letters.
She rolled over to her workspace, reached down beneath the desk and pressed the POWER button. Then she froze when she saw the Dell's power cord lying on the floor with the plug more than a foot from the wall outlet. If the computer had not been plugged in, how had the intruder been electrocuted? She stared at the monitor with amazement, reached out her hand and gingerly touched the keyboard.
"I owe you my life, don't I, old friend?"
As if in reply, the tiny green power indicator light on the Dell's keyboard momentarily blinked on and then went off again.
No, Salem. Hiding behind the computer monitor is not going to protect you from the dog next door.
