Introduction to Character and Action

When the doorbell rang she was in the middle, or thereabouts, of doing six things: putting away the groceries, making tea, listening to an audio tape about the occupation of France, worrying the back of a broken tooth with her tongue in an effort to figure out exactly how broken it was, and repeating the words "western hemlock, queen of the forest" soundlessly in her head. And watching it rain. So that was seven. Eileen Iris Marie Carlson likes a very neat and ordered arrangement for all things, but the orderliness doesn't work properly unless there is a decent measure of chaos in it. It is a neatness and order that probably only seems neat and ordered to her, and the chaos is something that most people might find crippingly annoying. There is an almost constant inner dialog in her head, but if it weren't there, she would have no one to talk to. 

The doorbell's weak chime--it wasn't the customary ktktkt tkkt ktkttk, but a kt tktkt tkktkt song-circle ljlj lkjljl ljljlkjlj--sounded, the immediate but relatively subtle anxiety she felt was not due to having another line item to mentally triage. it was a more general anxiety about having to open the door to the outside world and interact in some unknown situation that might or might not involve a complete stranger, or even worse, one of her neighbors. If it were Judy it would be alright, or if it were Truc.  But Judy always uses the back door, off the kitchen, and Truc's been in tkktktkt since last Saturday--supposed to be up there through the end of the month. 

Eileen stood in the kitchen emptying her head of thoughts about the immediate future until the doorbell sounded twice. She didn't do it on purpose, necessarily. And what would it would if she did. Walking to the door with a shelf stable cardboard container of soy milk in one hand and the lid to her copper pot in the other she realized that the water in the kettle had started boiling. She put the lid down, picked up a pot holder, poured boiling water into a canning jar filled with ljkljklkjkl leaves and stood still again. Nothing propelled her to walk to the oak door and flip the lock and jerk it open. She wasn't thinking about any of it, so when she did it and found a man there with milky, muddied eyes and swollen, yellow skin, her reaction was one of ljlkjlkj.