Alright then, back to The Gulag Archipelago, said I. I'd spent the night trying to get work done in the area's usually sedate Irish pub. But forsome reason the pub was packed fin to fin that night, full of guys yelling "Fer focksike," and swear to golly, "Hip hip hooray." Endemic anachronistic honkeism.
I get back to the hotel room late, prepared to truly knuckly down and knock another hundred pages out of Solzhenitsyn's great big brick of a book.
Five pages in I notice that my ceiling fan has slowed from a consisted hum to an Apocalypse Now-style whup whup whup. The the lights started to dim and brighten. Brownout?
Then everything grinds to a halt. Blackout. I put shoes on and stride out onto the hotel balcony. Two o'clock, and all is dead. Nothing to do but watch cars and vans come down the road, their headlights illuminating facades a mile down the road.
The sky was clear, the stars were brilliant, and I felt like I was on a forest road, watching trucks and tourists commuters drive pass through. And that's all right.
