The Red Pedestal

The Christmas display floor of a grand department store in Dallas in the evening, warm spotlights, pine garlands soft behind, on white carpet a computer on a black pedestal widening upward from a flat base plate, on top a bright red hood with rounded edges sloping back, a broad cream-white shelf jutting forward over the pedestal, behind it a narrow cream panel under dark smoked glass with grey rectangular keys, small toggle switches and five black-framed lit buttons, every key blank and every surface plain and unmarked, a folded white apron and a closed red cloth-bound book on the shelf, a woman's hand with a gold bracelet on one switch.