Hal in V.R. 6 with Wave Bye-Bye
Hal sits alone up in Viewing Room 6, the bad leg out along the couch in front of him, flexing the bad ankle idly, holding the other leg’s knee to his chest, squeezing a ball but with the hand he doesn’t play with, chewing Kodiak and spitting directly into an unlined wastebasket, his expression neutral, watching some cartridges of his late father’s entertainments. Anyone else looking at him in there tonight would call Hal depressed.
Context
Days into secretly quitting the Bob Hope, Hal holes up with his dead father's filmography, and the narrator's flat "Anyone else looking at him in there tonight would call Hal depressed" is the exact outside-vs.-inside move the essay will formalize — the word applied from the observer's seat, the question of what it's like in there left hanging.