The Green Beam

The television showroom of a department store in Chicago on a winter afternoon, low sunlight slanting through a tall shop window, a row of mahogany television cabinets with curved grey picture tubes and plain fronts, the nearest screen glowing blue-grey with four small dark round photocell windows at its corners, a salesman's hand in a dark suit sleeve pointing a hand lamp fifteen centimetres long at one corner, a short round barrel and a slanted grip of glossy bottle-green plastic, its flank plain and smooth, a broad gold-coloured ring around a clear lens at the front, a narrower gold ring capping the grip, a bright red plastic lever beneath the barrel.