THE SKY IS grey or closer to black. The
ceiling is about 100 feet above the snow. (Pilots' parlance). There has been no change for several
fortnights, the snow is several fathoms deep in the valleys... on the hilltops --- well, no one has been on a hilltop for 10 months.
Madness grows in the night. And it has been
endless night now forever. I haven't even heard a caw of a crow or a raven for many weeks.
The dogs and wolves have stopped howling. They are huddling together under the snow.
Even the weasels are silent, and they are notoriously restless creatures.
Hank has just passed through his second
month of winter, and he is settling into various disturbing habits. He mutters to himself when he writes. He keeps flipping through those nasty magazines of the preacher. And he scrabbles around scraping and digging his tunnel towards the East.
None of what Hank's doing holds any interest for me. His scraping and scrabbling
sounds are annoying. Not to mention his urgent
panicked breathing at other times...
I do the only logical thing. I open our round "moon-door", break through the six inches of ice with a pick-ax... and I crawl through the hole I have made in the ice. It's slippery as hell out of doors. I fall once then proceed to crawl across the Main Lane on my hands and knees.
Then I open the door to Artie's Bar and Grill and I smell the smokey air. I step inside.
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