On Whale Island by Daniel Hays

Author:Daniel Hays
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2001-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Day 166

Today is electrical-crisis day. The wind’s been north to northwest for eight days now, and the windmill is in its comfy wind hollow behind a hill. (Any jerk can put a windmill where there is wind.) The batteries were down to 8.6 volts this morning, so now we’ve rigged up the three solar panels and can use the laptop. I’m trying to print a resume, but the converter alarm keeps hinting at insufficient electrical funds and the printer dies midletter whenever a cloud floats by. I have always encountered such exceptional obstacles when attempting to produce a resume that I no longer even question my unconscious motives.

In college I loved going to the table of ten new computers in the library and one by one asking them to count all the books they had access to. They were ‘fast’ then, but now a calculator does more. By the time I got the tenth going the lights would dim and everything would be slowed back to human speed. Even the blinking cursors were slower, and I would know I’d done good in the world that day.

Another electrical event of great importance was tonight’s unveiling of the Christmas lights. Leave it to a rural Nova Scotian hardware store to have battery-operated Christmas lights. Two C batteries – rechargeable by windmill – will last four hours. We hang them up and it really does trigger a Christmas spirit, like a flow of endorphins. Since it is dark at four-thirty, any lights help.

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