I don’t feel like arguing. What difference does it make? Orange juicer or airplane—flying orange juicer?—what do I care? Still, where’s the wife while all this is happening? Why doesn’t she come home? I massage my temples again. The clock ticks on. TRPP Q SCHAOUS TRPP Q SCHAOUS. The remote control lies on the table, and next to it the stack of women’s magazines. The telephone is silent, the room illuminated by the dim glow of the television.

The two TV People on the screen keep working away. The image is much clearer than before. You can read the numbers on the dials, hear the faint rumble of machinery. TAABZHRAYBGG TAABZHRAYBGG ARP ARRP TAABZHRAYBGG. This bass line is punctuated periodically by a sharp, metallic grating. AREEEENBT AREEEENBT. And various other noises are interspersed through the remaining aural space; I can’t hear anything clearly over them. Still, the two TV People labor on for all they’re worth. That, apparently, is the subject of this program. I go on watching the two of them as they work on and on. Their colleague outside the TV set also looks on in silence. At them. At that thing—for the life of me, it does not look like an airplane—that insane machine all black and grimy, floating in a field of white light.

The TV People rep speaks up. “Shame about your wife.”

I look him in the face. Maybe I didn’t hear him right. Staring at him is like peering into the glowing tube itself.

“Shame about your wife,” the TV People rep repeats in exactly the same absent tone.

“How’s that?” I ask.

“How’s that? It’s gone too far,” says the TV People rep in a voice like a plastic-card hotel key. Flat, uninflected, it slices into me as if it were sliding through a thin slit. “It’s gone too far: She’s out there.”

“It’s gone too far: She’s out there,” I repeat in my head. Very plain, and without reality. I can’t grasp the context. Cause has effect by the tail and is about to swallow it whole. I get up and go to the kitchen. I open the refrigerator, take a deep breath, reach for a can of beer, and go back to the sofa. The TV People rep stands in place in front of the television, right elbow resting on the set, and watches me extract the pull-tab. I don’t really want to drink beer at this moment; I just need to do something. I drink one sip, but the beer doesn’t taste good. I hold the can in my hand dumbly until it becomes so heavy I have to set it down on the table.