T MY USUAL EARLY HOUR I sat at the computer to do some work on the passage that I would be reading in the evening, but it was Albertine who wrote: 
 

IN THE AFTERNOON, I walked up to Albertine at the desk and said, “Let me take you away from all of this, at least for the afternoon.”  She protested, pleading work, but I pointed out that with only two guests staying at the hotel, this was the perfect opportunity to refresh ourselves before the hordes arrived for the weekend.  I took her by the hand and led her to the dock, and I thought I could feel her spirits lighten as we approached it.  I pumped the launch, she started it up, I cast us off, and with Albertine at the wheel we escaped the confines of Small’s Island.  She was smiling all the way across the bay. 
   We drove the Small’s van to Foggy Cove and spent a couple of hours just walking around.  We came upon a little Victorian house undergoing renovation, and we daydreamed a bit about getting enough for the hotel so that we could buy the little house outright.  Albertine guessed that our living expenses would be tiny.  We could relax. 
   We ate dinner at the Foggy Cove Inn.  They had sent me a coupon for a free meal.  It was supposed to be good only during the week of my birthday, but I lied and no one questioned me. 
   We drove back to Babbington, I pumped the launch nearly dry, and we were back at the hotel in time for me to read episode seven of Dead Air, “Disturbing the Field,” as advertised. 

Here is the schematic, also drawn from memory: 

 You see the difference.  The pictorial depicts the thing as we would see it if it were assembled by a professional using the highest-quality components, but the schematic is a depiction of the essence of the thing; instead of showing the thing, it shows the point of the thing, its function and meaning, the ding an sich.  The pictorial is an attempt to represent the object, but the schematic is an attempt to represent the ideal underlying the object.  All the electrical projects I built in my boyhood career as a builder of electrical projects included in their instructions both types of diagram: one for the realists and one for the idealists, the dreamers. 
   Was it the realists or the dreamers who were most expected to expect the detector to work?  I’m not sure.  I know that I never really expected it to work at all.  I tried not to expect any of my projects to work; it kept the level of disappointment down. 
   In order to expect it to work, I would have had to assume that as a flying saucer passed overhead its engine (highly advanced, of course, and employing a source of power unknown on earth) would cause a local disturbance in the magnetic field, which would make a compass needle swing aside from its normal north-south orientation, and when the detector was finished, a remarkable phenomenon occurred: I bought that underlying assumption.  I was proud of my work; because I was proud of my work I wanted to feel that it was work worth doing; because I wanted to feel that it was worth doing, I had to accept its conceptual underpinnings; so, I did. 
   When one accepts something like that, one does not want to be alone with one’s beliefs, feeling like a solitary deluded dreamer, so one seeks another who can be persuaded to accept the same beliefs.  I turned to Porky White, who ran a clam bar in the older part of town, near the bay. 
   I climbed onto a stool at the counter and set the detector in front of me. 
   “Nice work,” said Porky.  “What is it?” 
   “It’s a flying-saucer detector,” I said. 
   “How does it work?” 
   “Well, first I have to get it aligned.” I rotated the base until the needle was steady within the ring of wire.  “There.  Now, if a flying saucer passes by, it will disturb the magnetic field—” 
   I paused.  If Porky was going to object, if he was going to refuse to accept the underlying assumption, if he was going to say that my detector rested on a base of preposterous delusions, this was the point at which he would do it. 
   He folded his arms across his chest and nodded his head and said, “Because of the anti-gravity drive, I suppose.” 
   “Right,” I said, without, I think, betraying my relief.  “The needle will swing and touch the wire, the current will flow, and the bulb will light.” 
   We both looked at the detector for a while.  Nothing happened. 
   “How do you know it’s working?” he asked. 
   “Well, there are two tests,” I explained.  I took a magnet from my pocket.  “This is the positive test,” I said, and I passed the magnet over the detector.  The needle swung, and the lamp lit. 
   “Wow,” said Porky. 
   I put the magnet away.  The needle settled down and aligned itself north-to-south, resting in the center of the wire circle, with the lamp unlit. 
   I said, “This is the negative test.” 
   “Oh.  I get it,” said Porky.  He came around the end of the counter, walked across the room, stuck his head outside and scanned the sky.  “Amazing!” he shouted.  “Not a saucer in sight!” 

From a mid-life crisis of failed dreams and an uncertain future, Eric Kraft weaves a beguiling, affectionate comedy of love and possibilities.

Leaving Small’s Hotel is published in paperback by Picador, a division of St. Martin's Press, at $14.00. 

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Leaving Small’s Hotel is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogues, settings, and businesses portrayed in it are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. 

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Leaving Small’s Hotel was first published on May 11, 1998, by Picador USA, a division of St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010. 

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