The whale carries us along. It’s fairly comfortable in here. There’s a flashlight he must’ve swallowed at some point, as well as a bed. Although there is no refrigerator, there is a cooler he must’ve swallowed at some point, and it holds some soft drinks, luncheon meats, and a loaf of bread, which is a packaged white, but beggars, et chetera, and it’s really fine given the circumstances. I playfully coin the term glamonahing, which is a kind of portmanteau of glamorous and Jonahing. This results in a not unwelcome chuckle in these most dire of end-times. The dog pretends not to have heard. In addition, I stumble upon a library of partially digested mystery paperbacks. None of your highbrow Highsmiths, but I enjoy a decent dime-store procedural as well as the next man (woman, thon). Call it a guilty pleasure. The days pass. Since there is no sun, I count the days by novels completed. I know from experience I read forty-five thousand words an hour (three times the national average), and that’s for technical material. I’ve never timed my recreational reading (to what end? It is recreational, after all!), but let’s say double the technical speed. So that’s eighty thousand words per hour. No, ninety-five thousand words per hour. No, ninety thousand words per hour, which means I read an average-length pulp mystery an hour, which means, with time off for sleep (the bed, although somewhat soaked in gastric juices, is quite comfortable compared with my old sleeping chair) and bologna sandwiches, I guesstimate I’ve been in here for exactly three months when we start to spin. [...]