When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a book with a bookmark in it. A ray of light entered the dark room, shining down on that book. He looked at the cover of that book in a daze for a while. He started regaining his hearing when he blinked about four or five times. He heard some sounds of war and many gunshots. It seemed that the movie of choice for his neighbor today was a war movie. He sat up and looked outside the window. Boom, boom. Whenever a loud cannon noise could be heard, the large TV in the house across from his flashed. He yawned as he quietly watched that TV for a while. Large-screen TVs were really good for watching stuff.

At that moment - “Turn your TV down” - he heard the deep voice of a man, presumably from the house above. Hearing the loud voice, his neighbor immediately turned down the TV volume. Maru smiled faintly and moved away from the window.

This is a mess - Maru thought as he went over to the kitchen and looked at the clock. It was 1 a.m. These days 1 a.m. wasn’t even that late. Maru would also usually watch a videotape or read a book around this time.

He wondered when he fell asleep since he didn’t remember feeling tired even once. He picked up the bottle of water on the table and went to the living room before sitting on the sofa. The sunken air of...