A voice sings a wake-up call to the inhabitants of the house as the story begins. There is something not right with this scene. The people who resided in the house have gone! The voice-clock is unaware that the humans are no longer there, so the voice sings on, calling the family to breakfast. The stove prepares breakfast, yet no one eats it. It is August 4, 2026, the voice from the ceiling speaks out reciting the calendar of activities for the day.
Next, the dishes are cleaned and ‘tiny robot mice’ emerge to vacuum. The sprinklers in the front yard begin to water the lawn, and the water sprays the west side of the house. Like figures on a Grecian urn, silhouettes, frozen in an instant in time, are visible on the west wall. “The five spots of paint – the man, the woman, the children, the ball – remained. The rest was a thin charcoaled layer.”
The nuclear incident has occurred, rendering humans extinct. Though the house is empty of occupants, it continues with its daily tasks with mechanical precision. Had nature not intervened, the house likely would have continued performing its rituals indefinitely.
At a moment notice nature steps in, and the house catches fire: “At ten o’clock the house began to die. The wind blew. A failing tree bough crashed through the kitchen window. Cleaning solvent, bottled, shattered over the stove. The room was ablaze in an instant!”
The house reacts to the fire at once. “Fire!” screamed a voice. Water gushes down from the ceiling as the house tries to fight the blaze, but the house burns anyway. Only one wall remained after the fire, and one voice chirped on “Today is August 5, 2026.”