The lamp wouldn't turn on. He struggled with it for what seemed like half an hour, swearing under his breath, and then swearing out loud, loudly out loud, freaking out both of the cats in the apartment. He would apologize to them later. Anyway, they should be used to it by now.

And then once he got the damned thing on he couldn't turn it off.

He wasn't going to waste half an hour on this useless project, too. He wanted to go to bed. He simply unplugged the lamp. That turned it off. That worked. Now the apartment was...

"Tell me what she looks like," said the young man.

The young man had managed to find a box to sit on. He was resting with legs crossed at the ankles. He peered straight ahead, smiling slightly, like he was the only one in on the joke. But of course he couldn't see anything because he was blind. You could have told that just by looking at him, the way he was faking concentration on the scene before him with that sadly unfocused gaze.

The older man, who was much shorter, stood only a few steps away, with his hands...