In the short story “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury, a self-functioning house that has lost its inhabitants carries on its “life” as if they never left. It can be assumed that they’re dead because of the quote “At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles” (1). But the quote also brings up a question. If the city is in such a state of radioactivity, then how is there still life? The story mentions animals that come near the house but are shooed away by automated movement and noises made. The dog of the house (the house recognized its voice) came in, but not with its normal appearance. “The dog, once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone and covered with sores, moved in and through the house, tracking mud”(2). From what it seems, the animals are all probably malnourished and weak. But that’s not what I want to talk about right now. What I want to discuss is what happens to it. After entering the house, the dog was cleansed and ran around the house, barking at every door, looking for its owners. Finally realizing the house was empty, it ran to the kitchen when it smelled something but was stopped by the door. It proceeded to scratch at it then spun around chasing its tail, then immediately fell over dead. It was so close to death, and wasted what little energy it had left looking for its owners. The body literally stays there for a hour. Its a rather somber moment, and gets darker when the house disposes of the corpse. Its thrown into the fire and that’s that. Its ironic how lively the house seems even though its robotic. Constantly taking action as if the people of the house are even there. It perfectly embodies two lines from the actual poem “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Sara Teasdale. “Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, if mankind perished utterly…” (8-9). Instead of nature, it’s the house in this instance. Many days have passed filled of the same routines to keep the house clean, as well as the useless ones. Drawing baths and making breakfast for a possibly deceased family shows how unnoticed they truly are by the house. As alive as the house seems it is still robotic in nature. The liveliness of the house comes crashing down however, in the literal sense.A tree bough (one of the main branches of a tree) smashed through the kitchen window, breaking a bottle of cleaning solvent that shattered all over the stove, instantly setting a fire (very unlucky). It can be interpreted as the house dying, because realistically, that’s exactly what is happening. That’s how it describes the voices shutting down as the house becomes more damage. As the home burned down, in a sense, the memory of the family that lived in it burns as well.