In the style of Truman Capote.

Carefully Charles placed the large piece of stained wood on the blue floor of his small studio apartment. “I’m going to need to take those screws out,” he sighed to himself. Large, bald, with small eyes and typically a massive grin, he now appeared unenthusiastic but nowhere near discouraged. He bent down to kneel on the padded material that covered the ground in his home of twenty years. Charles had bought the flooring from a sporting goods store that usually provided the material to gymnastic studios and wrestling gyms. He had wanted a soft, spongy material, not the original concrete. The powder blue color had purposefully been chosen to match the hue of the walls. The result was sterility; the feeling of a doctor’s office.

As Charles began to unscrew the three bolts out of the pale wood surface using an electric drill, he stopped suddenly, tense. The piercing, mechanical sound left the room as immediately as it had arrived. There was a bell ringing towards the front of the apartment. It was the broken doorbell; quiet, metallic, barely audible. As the sporadic rhythm continued, it was clear the infiltrator was determined.

As soon as Charles realized what the sound was his breath came at a quicker pace, his heart beat a little faster. He got up soundlessly, easier than he seemed capable of. He tiptoed to the living room door and shut it, then walked to kitchen to shut the sliding wood door that opened into the entryway. Charles was an expert on evading people and exploiting the system. The afternoon of February 14^th would be no different.