A man - not tall, not short, not fat, not thin, but definitely a man - checks his watch. He checks the sky. He checks the air. He checks all of these, looking at each of them in turn, with an expression of growing concern and confusion.

"That's strange," he says to himself, but with no particular mind paid to volume and as such it sounds less like it's to 'himself' as 'no one specific'. "There weren't any mass, inescapable dreamings scheduled until at least next month."