When he finally ran out of Pepsi he turned off the TV and ejected another cassette from the VCR. (Either he had put in a cassette earlier or the VCR was somehow creating new ones and popping them out like eggs.) I brought the cassette to him and placed it on the couch's armrest, next to the empty 12-pack carton. "I'll put it away later," he said. Then he closed his eyes and drooped his head forward, letting the tip of bent proboscis lay upon his chest.

This time both his hands were in his lap, and I was free to move about. I climbed over his legs, to the other side of the couch, and found the U-shaped tear in the carpet. As I lifted the torn flap a silverfish slithered up my arm. I brushed it off and crushed it beneath my palm. Underneath the flap I found more cassettes, tightly packed together. I pried some of the cassettes loose, revealing another layer of cassettes beneath the first, and a third layer beneath that. I dug down to twelve layers before finally giving up. I tore away more of the carpet, revealing still more cassettes. Apparently my apartment sat upon a vast underground vault of VHS videocassettes, labeled with characters of neither Greek nor Hebrew nor Arabic nor any other alphabet formed by any human hand.

I took out two of the cassettes, climbed back over the sleeping Bullwinkle's legs, loaded one of the cassettes into the VCR, turned on the TV, and pressed PLAY.