We all knew the situation was inauspicious, the planets lined up overhead like they a firing squad and this empty silence roaming around our town, cut off from the other mountain towns by an electrical blackout. Without power, there was no way of knowing what was happening anywhere else. Left alone with our thoughts until help came from outside, a group of us gathered around a blazing fire in the abandoned city hall, feeding it with documents and broken furniture. Scientific progress had long told us we were parcels of dumb atoms and that consciousness and the soul were merely human projections. Now science had failed itself. In that void against my will I felt the emotions of every woman, child and man in that room and sensed they could feel mine. There was surrender in that connection. Whatever was human in us could endure the long wait until morning. By night, nothing could be decided. Only morning could bring any sign of resolution, however fragile that might be. Above us hovered the glittering stars, a wheel of fortune mutely revolving on its black hole axis projecting constellations of opioid clusters, roses and fairy wrens. And I realized the stars knew me, and I knew them. I was moved to speak: I’m an optimist, I said, and everybody stared at me with disdain. So I continued – patience, my mother used to say, everything in its time, slow down, catch your breath. And as dawn grew closer, one by one we each began to tell his or her story and in those webs of words we felt less alone, cast into the same predicament, knowing all we had was each other.