He packed, left his room, and then, his hand on the garden gate, thought suddenly of postponing his departure and returning to the garden, where he would be able to hide unseen for some time. He set the suitcase down and went back into the garden. All was peaceful there. The flowers stood slender and erect. The electric water sprinkler spurted out a formless cloud of mist onto the shrubs. Chance felt with his fingers the prickly pine needles and the sprawling twigs of the hedge. They seemed to reach toward him. For some time he stood in the garden looking around lazily in the morning sun. Then he disconnected the sprinkler and walked back to his room. He turned on the TV, sat down on the bed, and flicked the channel changer several times. Country houses, skyscrapers, newly built apartment houses, churches shot across the screen. He turned the set off. The image died; only a small blue dot hung in the center of the screen, as if forgotten by the rest of the world to which it belonged; then it too disappeared.
