A man happens to look behind his couch and see a bomb. His heart freezes. He stares at the stiff black hands of the alarm clock strapped to the grease-cloth package. His ears fill with the sound of ticking. At last he is able to rouse himself from terror-hypnotized immobility. He tiptoes towards the door.
In the first scenario, he gets out in time. He runs for the police who put on strange iron and rubber suits and creep in behind the couch and daintily ensconce the bomb in a special wicker basket, where it roars like a volcanic toy, furious but harmless.
In the other scenario, the bomb goes off just as the man reaches the doorway. The roof of the house bursts open. The man is thrown into the sky He lands upside-down in a tree. After a while, he shakes himself. He manages to grip and slide and finally tumble to the ground. He gets up and holds on to the tree trunk unsteadily. As far as he can tell, he’s all right. He looks around. He’s on a hill; he doesn’t recognize at all what he can see of the green, silent countryside. Dazed still, tottering slightly, he starts off down through the trees, looking for a road. And that’s how his great adventure begins.