He stumbled over a par¬ticularly uneven section of pavement. 'Eight-thirty p.m.? Time for a dozen assorted murders? A quiz? A revue? A comedian falling off the stage?' Was that a murmur of laughter from within a moon-white house? He hesitated, but went on when nothing more happened. 'What is it now?' he asked the houses, noticing his wrist watch. If he closed his eyes and stood very still, frozen, he could imagine himself upon the centre of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds, the streets, for company. 'What's up tonight on Channel 4, Channel 7, Channel 9? Where are the cowboys rushing, and do I see the United States Cavalry over the next hill to the rescue?' The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in mid-country. 'Hello, in there,' he whispered to every house on every side as he moved.

He listened to the faint push of his soft shoes through autumn leaves with satis-faction, and whistled a cold quiet whistle between his teeth, occasionally picking up a leaf as he passed, examining its skeletal pattern in the infrequent lamplights as he went on, smelling its rusty smell. There was a good crystal frost in the air it cut the nose and made the lungs blaze like a Christmas tree inside you could feel the cold light going on and off, all the branches filled with invisible snow. On this particular evening he began his journey in a westerly direction, towards the hidden sea. For long ago he had wisely changed to sneakers when strolling at night, because the dogs in intermittent squads would parallel his journey with barkings if he wore hard heels, and lights might click on and faces appear and an entire street be startled by the passing of a lone figure, himself, in the early November evening. Mr Leonard Mead would pause, cock his head, listen, look, and march on, his feet making no noise on the lumpy walk. Sudden grey phantoms seemed to manifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomb-like building was still open. And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows. Sometimes he would walk for hours and miles and return only at midnight to his house. He would stand upon the corner of an intersection and peer down long moonlit avenues of pavement in four directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference he was alone in this world of A.D., 2053 or as good as alone, and with a final decision made, a path selected, he would stride off, sending patterns of frosty air before him like the smoke of a cigar. To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o'clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do.

The pedestrian short story full text