IN BED that night, however, I couldn’t sleep at all. Rain was falling, and the roof was leaking. It wasn’t leaking any longer in the spot from which drops fell on my head; now it was leaking in two other places. . . .

Then I read the seventeenth episode of Dead Air, “Is Anybody Out There?”

“BEFORE I BEGIN the next reading from Dead Air,” I said to the group in the lounge after dinner, “I have something more to say about fallout shelters. “ . . .

AT ABOUT THREE I gave up trying to get to sleep. I slipped out of bed, dressed in the dark, tiptoed to the door, and pulled it silently shut behind me, . . .

THAT EVENING, in the lounge of an old hotel on a small island artificially infested with feral cats, I read episode sixteen of Dead Air, “Anxiety Pays.” . . .

IN THE AFTERNOON, Albertine and I walked the perimeter of the island, along the margin, circumambulating our domain. This walk was once a part of every day, a high point of every day. In our early years here, . . .

THOUGHTS OF GUNS filled most of my morning. The day before, while Elaine had been at the Rush Service office (or, as I learned later, pretending to be at the Rush Service office), I had been at Sun and Surf, choosing guns. . . .

THE GROUP that lingered in the lounge after the reading couldn’t get off the topic of fallout shelters. Apparently, I had revived for them an old debate that had been suspended but never concluded, . . .

AFTER DINNER that night, Elaine distributed gifts. Each of us got a small gaily wrapped box, and she commanded us to open them in unison. In each box was a pair of earmuffs . . .

DREDGING did not begin until seven. Albertine had managed to get the Department of Public Works to make Dexter hold off until then.