And now the chicken, the headless, dead chicken, decided to protest. A squawk came out of something that couldn’t have been its beak, because the head, detached or at least semidetached, was in one of his hands. He was holding the body by the neck and it was wriggling. Let me down, let me down.

He dropped the hen, heard it running away, and he charged. He ran at the wall. Not his own wall-he was thinking. The wall on the other side, two houses down from his own. He was up, no sweat, and he was over. He sat down for a while, to get his breath back, to work out his route home. He listened. He hadn’t heard the kitchen door being opened and the hen seemed to have accepted that it was dead. The other two hadn’t noticed, or they were in mourning. It was very quiet.

He was safe-he thought he was safe. He was stupid, exhilarated, appalled, ashamed, fuckin’ delighted, and safe. He looked up at the sky. And he saw it, the shuttle. The brightest star, moving steadily across the night. The Endeavour-he remembered the name.

He was back in the bed.

She woke-half woke. His cold feet, his weight on the mattress.

— What’s wrong?

— Nothing, he said.-I got up to see the shuttle.

— Great.

She was asleep already.

— It was amazing, he said, addressing her back.-Amazing.

He kissed her neck.

He actually slept. It was Friday night, Saturday morning.

The bed was empty when he woke. It was a long time since that had happened, since she’d been awake before him. He felt good-he felt great. He’d flossed and brushed before he’d got back into bed, no trace of the hen between his teeth. He’d gargled quietly till his eyes watered. No bad taste, and no guilt. He shouldn’t have done what he’d done, but a more important consideration quickly smothered any guilt. It was the thought he’d fallen asleep with, clutching it like a teddy bear, just after he’d kissed his wife’s neck.