Mr Henly expected the girl to make a telephone call to check on his credit or do something to see if he had been lying about the 25,000 dollars.

She didn’t.

‘Don’t worry about anything,’ she said. She certainly did have a nice voice. ‘The set is yours. Just step in there.’

She pointed towards a room that had a pleasant door. Actually the door was quite exciting. It was a heavy wooden door with a fantastic grain running through the wood, a grain like the cracks of an earthquake running across the desert sunrise. The grain was filled with light.

The doorknob was pure silver. It was the door that Mr Henly had always wanted to open. His hand had dreamt its shape while millions of years had passed in the sea.

Above the door was a sign:

BLACKSMITH.

He opened the door and went inside and there was a man waiting for him. The man said, ‘Take off your shoes, please.’

‘I just want to sign the papers,’ Mr Henly said. ‘I’ve got a steady job. I’ll pay on time.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ the man said. ‘Just take off your shoes.’

Mr Henly took off his shoes.

‘The socks, too.’

He did this and then did not think it strange because after all he didn’t have any money to buy the television set with. The floor wasn’t cold.

‘How tall are you?’ the man asked.

‘5–11.’

The man walked over to a filing cabinet and pulled out the drawer that had 5–11 printed on it. The man took out a plastic bag and then closed the drawer. Mr Henly thought of a good joke to tell the man but then immediately forgot it.

The man opened the bag and took out the shadow of an immense bird. He unfolded the shadow as if it were a pair of pants.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s the shadow of a bird,’ the man said and walked over to where Mr Henly was sitting and laid the shadow on the floor beside his feet.

Then he took a strange-looking hammer and pulled the nails out of Mr Henly’s shadow, the nails that fastened it to his body. The man folded up the shadow very carefully. He laid it on a chair beside Mr Henly.

‘What are you doing?’ Mr Henly said. He wasn’t afraid. Just a little curious.

‘Putting the shadow on,’ the man said and nailed the bird’s shadow on to his feet. At least it didn’t hurt.

‘There you go,’ the man said. ‘You have 24 months to pay for the television set. When you finish paying for the set, we’ll switch shadows. It looks pretty good on you.’

Mr Henly stared down at the shadow of a bird coming off his human body. It doesn’t look bad, Mr Henly thought.

When he left the room the beautiful girl behind the desk said, ‘My, how you’ve changed.’