"This what?" she said.
"You know," I said. "Color TV like a picture you hang on a wall."
All the color faded from her face. Her eyes went past me, staring. I turned in the direction she was staring, and on the wall above the plateglass front of the cafe was a picture.
That is, there was a picture frame and a pair of dark glasses that took up most of the picture, with the lower part of a forehead and the upper part of a nose. I had noticed it once while I was eating and had assumed it was a display ad for sun glasses. Now I looked at it more closely, but could detect no movement in it. It still looked like an ad for sun glasses.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I heard the waitress say, her voice edged with fear.
"Huh?" I said, turning my head back to look at her. "Oh. Well, never mind."
I left the cafe with every outward appearance of casual innocence; but inside I was beginning to realize for the first time the possibilities and the danger that could lie in the use of this new TV development.
That had been a Big-Brother-is-Watching-you setup back there in the cafe, except that it had been a girl instead of a man, judging from the style of sun glasses and the smoothness of the nose and forehead.
I had wondered about the broadcasting end of things. Now I knew. That had been the TV "eye," and somewhere there was a framed picture hanging on the wall, bringing in everything that took place in the cafe, including everything that was said. Everything I had said, too. It was an ominous feeling.
Aunt Matilda had almost had a stroke trying to get me out of town. Now I knew why. She was caught in this thing and wanted to save me. Four days ago she had probably not fully realized the potentiality for evil of the invention, but by the time I showed up she knew it.