Section 1 — The setting and Mead's habit
- What happens: we meet Leonard Mead, who has walked the empty city every night for ten years.
- Points to note:
- Time: a misty November evening in A.D. 2053 — a future world.
- Mead: a writer; loves long, silent evening walks on the concrete pavements and grassy patches. (2025 specimen Q5(i))
- In ten years he has never met another walker — the first sign of a strange society.
Section 2 — The city as a graveyard
- What happens: Mead passes dark houses where people sit before their television screens.
- Points to note:
- Graveyard image: the houses are like tombs, the people like the dead; only grey, flickering TV light moves.
- Alone: like the shadow of a hawk over open country, or a man in the middle of an Arizona desert with no house for a thousand miles. (2025 specimen Q5(ii))
- Irony: the people indoors are "alive" but act like the dead; the solitary walker is the only living person.
Section 3 — The sneakers
- What happens: Mead explains why he gave up hard-heeled shoes.
- Points to note: hard heels attracted attention — dogs barked, lights came on, people looked out; he wanted to move quietly and unobserved. (2025 specimen Q5(iii)) Even walking quietly is a kind of hiding in this society.
Section 4 — The police car arrives
- What happens: a lone car turns the corner and catches Mead in its headlights.
- Points to note:
- Mead stands motionless, spellbound — like a moth caught in a light — and moves towards it. (2025 specimen Q5(iv))
- The only police car in a city of three million — crime has almost disappeared because people never go out.
Section 5 — The interview
- What happens: the car questions Mead about his name, profession, purpose, home and marriage.
- Points to note:
- "Writer" counts as no profession — nobody reads books or magazines any more.
- Walking "for air" makes no sense when every home has an air conditioner; walking "to see" makes no sense when everyone watches screens.
- Having no viewing screen is the most suspicious fact of all.
- The machine allows no explanation: it only orders.
Section 6 — The empty car and the Psychiatric Center
- What happens: the car is empty; Mead is locked in its cell-like back seat and told he is being taken to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies.
- Points to note:
- No driver: the state is run by machines; there is no human to appeal to.
- The back seat is a small prison — cold, clean, metallic.
- "Regressive tendencies" — walking without a purpose is treated as mental illness. (2025 specimen Q5(v): he is taken away for walking without a purpose.)
Section 7 — The ending
- What happens: they pass Mead's house, the only one brightly lit; the car drives on.
- Points to note:
- Contrast: Mead's house glows with warm yellow light; all the others are dark with grey TV glow — his house is full of life and individuality.
- The car's silence at "That's my house" shows a world with no compassion.
- The ending is quiet but chilling: an ordinary man disappears for being different.