Summary

1. Part Two begins with a description of Mitchell first rejecting of something he believes he did not order, something described as a coffin. Narration then flashes back to the days after Mitchell heard the news about Elsa (at this point, the narrative does not reveal what that news was). Mitchell woke up “from a dream of swaying, infinitely tall glass towers and a sky as bright as a nuclear flash” (95-96), and started wondering, in the aftermath of learning that Ticonderoga has a phone, what else Elsa had been lying to him about. Then, after sleepwalking through his morning at work, Mitchell went for lunch, noticing the strange behavior of animals and babies, wondering if they were somehow aware of an impending disaster. Along the way, he passed an art gallery, where his attention was drawn...