He took his little meal to the dining table, where he turned on the light and surrounded himself with books. The window-system manual, the UNIX operating system guide, a data sheet for the graphics workstation, specifications for the VT-200 character terminal—a circuit of technology ringing his plate. Then for the next hour, he read and ate with a childish absorption, like the pleasure of stuffing his mouth with buttered popcorn in the darkness of a movie theater. Joanna’s being gone made it all the better: Time felt spacious, unbounded. All the little accommodations he normally made for her—not reading at the table, the how-was-your-day-dear conversation—were in suspension. He dove into his manuals the way he dove into his food. Soon spaghetti was stuck to the pages of the OS guide. Bread crumbs were folded into the workstation data sheet. Everything was dotted red with tomato sauce.