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As the months passed Eddy went about his days in a meticulous and deliberate manner. His plans were executed with precision, leaving little time to be squandered. He went to work,tended the garden and tidied the house dutifully. He fixed things that were broken. He sorted what was jumbled in the bottoms of closets or in crates and boxes in the garage. All of these tasks and responsibilities he completed efficiently and with care, but none of them brought him pleasure or even a sense of accomplishment. They required little thought or emotional investment and so he saw no reason to apply such things .

Eddy had never been particularly outgoing, but his reclusiveness was becoming a bit conspicuous. He had made it a habit to take the trash out in the middle of the night so as to avoid being seen by the next-door neighbors with whom he had chatted in the past when they simultaneously occupied their respective yards. He had started bringing more groceries home from work so as to avoid the need to run errands (even visiting the farmer’s market). He had even gotten internet service at home so that he could do his banking and reserve library books without leaving his home.

No one expected him to just go about his business as usual, but his friends and neighbors couldn’t help wondering about him, speculating about his peculiar behavior. He sensed this and felt that it justified his decision to keep to himself. He couldn’t stand to have to be around people and see them looking at him and thinking things.

He began to go for bike rides very early in the morning. It was inevitable that he would pass the occasional jogger or dog-walker or garbage collector, but at least there was little traffic, meaning that he could ride more quickly, perhaps enough-so as to avoid being noticed in the foggy twilight.

Eddy began to feel a growing contempt for other people, but he had nothing against the other lifeforms he encountered and soon he started to feel that they wer his allies. The squirrel in the neighbor’s fir tree did not judge him. The marmelaid cat on the corner did not give him a funny look. There was nothing about him that seemed any odder to them than the other sorts of human behavior that they encountered daily. In their presence Eddy felt that he could ride purposefully and with what little pride and dignity a man such as himself might feel as he did the one thing in his life that still had meaning; as he did what little he could to redeem himself.