In Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian," Mr. Mead's house differs from the other houses in the city because it is well illuminated, there is no television set in it, and it is unoccupied.
Leaving the lights on in his home during the evening, Mr. Mead walks the empty sidewalks of his town for hours, not returning to his own house until midnight. While he is outside walking, he passes houses in which
only the faintest glimmers...
In Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian," Mr. Mead's house differs from the other houses in the city because it is well illuminated, there is no television set in it, and it is unoccupied.
Leaving the lights on in his home during the evening, Mr. Mead walks the empty sidewalks of his town for hours, not returning to his own house until midnight. While he is outside walking, he passes houses in which
only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.
These flickers of light come from television sets before which the occupants of the houses sit in the dark in order to better view what is on the small and dim screens. (In its early days, television was broadcast in only black and white and light was minimal in the first sets.)
For ten years, Mr. Mead has walked "for air and to see," covering thousands of miles. Yet in all this distance and time, he has never met one person outside who is also walking on the sidewalks that now are vanishing under flowers and grass. In fact, in the year 2052, Mr. Mead's walking is not normal, and he is stopped by a mechanized patrol car that forces him to get into the vehicle. He will be taken to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies.
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