His house was still there.
How or why, he had no idea. He had decided to go and have a look while he was waiting for the pub to empty, so that he could go and ask the landlord for a bed for the night when everyone else had gone. And there it was.
He hurriedly let himself in with the key he kept under a stone frog in the garden, because, astoundingly, the phone was ringing. He had heard it faintly all the way up the lane and had started to run as soon as he realized where the sound was coming from.
The door had to be forced open because of the astonishing accumulation of junk mail on the doormat. It jammed itself stuck on what he would later discover were fourteen identical, personally addressed invitations to apply for a credit card he already had, seventeen identical threatening letters for nonpayment of bills on a credit card he didn’t have, thirty-three identical letters saying that he personally had been specially selected as a man of taste and discrimination who knew what he wanted and where he was going in today’s sophisticated jetsetting world and would he therefore like to buy some grotty wallet, and also a dead tabby kitten.
He rammed himself through the relatively narrow opening afforded by all this, stumbled through a pile of wine offers that no discriminating connoisseur would want to miss, slithered over a heap of beach villa holidays, blundered up the dark stairs to his bedroom and got to the phone just as it stopped ringing.
He collapsed, panting, on to his cold, musty-smelling bed and for a few minutes stopped trying to prevent the world from spinning round his head in the way it obviously wanted to.
When it had enjoyed its little spin and had calmed down a bit, Arthur reached out for the bedside light, not expecting it to come on. To his surprise it did. This appealed to Arthur’s sense of logic. Since the Electricity Board cut him off without fail every time he paid his bill, it seemed only reasonable that they should leave him connected when he didn’t. Sending them money obviously only drew attention to yourself.
The room was much as he had left it, i.e. festeringly untidy, though the effect was muted a little by a thick layer of dust. Half-read books and magazines nestled amongst piles of half-used towels. Half pairs of socks reclined in half-drunk cups of coffee. What was once a half-eaten sandwich had now half-turned into something that Arthur entirely didn’t want to know about. Bung a fork of lightning through this lot, he thought to himself, and you’d start the evolution of life all over again.
There was only one thing in the room that was different.
For a moment or so he couldn’t see what the one thing that was different was, because it too was covered in a film of disgusting dust. Then his eyes caught it and stopped.
It was next to a battered old television on which it was only possible to watch Open University Study Courses, because if it tried to show anything more exciting it would break down.
It was a box.
他的房子仍然在那儿。
怎么会呢？为什么呢？他还搞不明白。他本来在等着酒馆打烊，这样他就可以等其他人都走了的时候向老板要张床来睡。但在他等待的时候，他决定到他的房子那儿看看。就这样吧。
他飞快地用放在花园石蛙底下的钥匙开了门，冲进房子里，因为电话居然在响。他在路上一直迷惑地听着那个电话铃声，突然意识到了那个声音来自哪里，于是开始飞奔。
由于擦鞋垫上堆了一大坨垃圾邮件，门必须用力才能打开。他随后就会发现那些卡住门的东西包括：十四封一模一样的他早就有的信用卡的申请邀请函；十七封一模一样的他根本就没有的信用卡的欠费恐吓信；三十三封一模一样的信，上面写着他被特选为一名深谙品味和鉴赏之道的人，这种人明白自己在如今复杂纷繁的世界中想要什么，明白自己要走向何方，因此肯定会乐意购买一些难看的钱包和一只死斑猫。
他挤过所有这些杂物中间的小缝，绊过一堆声称“行家绝不会错过”的酒单，滑过一摞海滩别墅假日宣传单，跌跌撞撞地爬上通向卧室的黑暗楼梯，就在抓住电话的那一刹那，铃声刚好停了。
他颓然倒下，在自己冰冷发霉的床上喘着气，试着阻止世界按照它显然想要旋转的方式在自己头上旋转，几分钟后，他停止了这一徒劳的尝试。
当世界已经转得过瘾了并开始平静时，阿瑟伸手去够床头灯，但并不指望灯能亮。另他惊讶的是，灯亮了。这引起了阿瑟的逻辑感的好奇。因为每次他付了帐的时候供电局都会准确无误地把电断掉，似乎唯一合理的解释就是，他们应当跟他时刻保持联络。给他们钱显然只能吸引他们对自己的注意力。
这个房间和他当初离开的时候几乎一样，话句话说，就是一样的腐烂和脏乱，尽管厚厚的一层灰其实减轻了一点脏乱的感觉。半双袜子放在了半空的咖啡杯上。吃剩一半的三明治一半地变成了一些阿瑟完全不想知道的东西。他琢磨着，如果在这堆东西上头来道闪电，就可以重现一遍生命的进化过程了。
那里只有一件东西不太一样。
有一阵儿，他看不出来是那件东西不太一样，因为它也被一层恶心的灰尘覆盖着。接着他瞅见了它，目光定住了。
它在一台破旧的电视旁边。那台电视只能播放函授大学的课程，因为任何更刺激的节目都会让电视崩溃。
那是个盒子。