Shards of the broken vase lay beneath the window seal.
The window seat looked like a vicious cat had attacked it; everything was in disarray.
Maureen took minutes to take it all in. Her quaint little home had been vandalized, and she had no idea who the assailants were. However, she knew what they were after, which is why she fled her home for three years. Seeing the mess brought painful memories, but now that that part of her life was over, she could start fresh. Maureen took out all the cleaning equipment from her car and decided to begin with the bedroom. The summer heat did not make things any easier. It took her two days to make the bedroom habitable. On the first day, she switched on the central air conditioner; it worked but was barely efficient. Maureen wanted to call the air conditioning company after cleaning the house. On the third day, when she was working on the living and kitchen area, she couldn’t bare it anymore. The readings on the digital thermostat were way beyond what was tolerable. Maureen called for an air conditioning professional on that day. She had avoided thinking about the state of the air conditioner when she walked into the house for the first time in three years. Maureen was so relieved that the climate control device was still intact. The air conditioning business responded first because, in two hours, the a/c repairman had arrived. He inspected the air conditioning install and told Maureen that it was better than she had anticipated. The air conditioning filter was clogged with dirt, but a replacement could quickly solve that. It had been a while since it received any a/c service, so a/c repairs were inevitable. The best news the air conditioning professional told her was that she didn’t need to purchase new equipment because the a/c setup would be up and running once the technician finished working on it.