The wife changes into around-the-house wear and goes to the kitchen to fix zosui and tamago-yaki while filling me in on her friends. Who’d done what, who’d said what, who’d changed her hairstyle and looked so much younger, who’d broken up with her boyfriend. I know most of her friends, so I pour myself a beer and follow along, inserting attentive uh-huhs at proper intervals. Though, in fact, I hardly hear a thing she says. I’m thinking about the TV People. That, and why she didn’t remark on the sudden appearance of the television. No way she couldn’t have noticed. Very odd. Weird, even. Something is wrong here. But what to do about it?

The food is ready, so I sit at the dining-room table and eat. Rice, egg, salt plum. When I’ve finished, the wife clears away the dishes. I have another beer, and she has a beer, too. I glance at the sideboard, and there’s the TV set, with the power off, the remote-control unit sitting on the table. I get up from the table, reach for the remote control, and switch it on. The screen glows and I hear it tinkling. Still no picture. Only the same blank tube. I press the button to raise the volume, but all that does is increase the white-noise roar. I watch the snowstorm for twenty, thirty seconds, then switch it off. Light and sound vanish in an instant. Meanwhile, the wife has seated herself on the carpet and is flipping through Elle, oblivious of the fact that the TV has just been turned on and off.

I replace the remote control on the table and sit down on the sofa again, thinking I’ll go on reading that long García Márquez novel. I always read after dinner. I might set the book down after thirty minutes, or I might read for two hours, but the thing is to read every day. Today, though, I can’t get myself to read more than a page and a half. I can’t concentrate; my thoughts keep returning to the TV set. I look up and see it, right in front of me.

I WAKE AT HALF PAST TWO in the morning to find the TV still there. I get out of bed half hoping the thing has disappeared. No such luck. I go to the toilet, then plop down on the sofa and put my feet up on the table. I take the remote control in hand and try turning on the TV. No new developments in that department, either; only a rerun of the same glow and noise. Nothing else. I look at it awhile, then switch it off.