The Shifted Hour

The living room of a house in a suburb of Chicago late at night, a single floor lamp casting warm light across a gold shag carpet, curtains drawn, against the wall a wide low console cabinet of reddish teak wood on a black plinth, at left a colour picture tube in a black frame glowing with a soft blurred image in blue and orange, at right a silver-grey front panel with a cassette slot, round knobs and a row of blank push-buttons, above it a narrow dark compartment, a hand in a cardigan sleeve pressing a plain black videocassette into the slot, an empty armchair turned toward the screen.