In case I am being watched, I don't immediatelv continue my snooping, but return to my cottage and lock the door behind me.

Not many years ago, nearly 100 percent of people who thought they were being constantly watched were certifiable paranoids.  But recently it was revealed that, in the name of public safety, Homeland Security and more than a hundred other local, state, and federal agencies are operating aerial surveillance drones of the kind previously used only on foreign battlefields - at low altitudes outside the authority of air-traffic control.  Soon, the bigger worry will not be that, as you walk your dog, you are secretly being watched but that the rapidly proliferating drones will begin colliding with one another and with passenger aircraft, and that you'll be killed by the plummeting drone that was monitoring you to be sure that you picked up Fido's poop in a federally approved pet-waste bag.

Having returned to my cottage, I consider switching on the TV to a channel running classic movies, to see if Katharine Hepburn or Cary Grant will suggest that I should sleep.  But the caffeine will soon pin my eyelids open, and I suspect that I need to be at least on the brink of nodding off before the invader - whoever or whatever it might be - can access me through the television.

I switch off most of the lights, so that from outside it might appear that I'm finished exploring Harmony Corner and am leaving one lamp aglow as a night-light.  Sitting on the edge of the bed, I eat a candy bar.

One of the benefits of living in almost constant jeopardy is that I don't need to worry about things like cholesterol and tooth decay.  I'm sure to be killed long before my arteries can be closed by plaque.  As for dental cavities, I tend instead to lose my teeth in violent confrontations.  Not yet twenty-two, I already have seven teeth that are man-made implants.

I eat the second candy bar.  Soon, thanks to all the sugar and caffeine, I should be so wired that I'll be able to receive the nearest tower-of-power radio broadcast through the titanium pins that lock those seven artificial teeth into my jawbone.  I hope it won't be a greatest-hits station specializing in seventies disco tunes.

I switch off the last lamp, which is on a nightstand.

Beyond the bed, in the back wall of the cottage, one crank-operated casement window offers a view of the night woods.  The two panes open inward to provide fresh air, and a screen keeps out moths and other pests.  The screen is spring-loaded from the top and easily removed.  From outside, I reinstall it with little noise.