He stopped,. rolled the pen between his fingers and sat back in the stiff chair, thinking. The book that had already taken six months to accumulate lay in a pile of paper to one side—the manuscript that none but a few elderly professors and graduate students in far places would ever bother to read. Then he looked out the window, toward the serrated silhouette of the Sierra San Pedro Martir. He pulled a fresh sheet of paper from the virgin pile, considered briefly.
He began to write.
The crowd had grown smaller year after year. Now, barely a decade after fireworks and television crews had shed lights on the program’s beginning, only a pair of minor functionaries from the mayoral offices in Seattle and Victoria, a few news photographers and the fisheries men were there to observe the ceremonial opening.
The chief engineer checked his watch against the wall chronometer and took a bite out of his sandwich.
“Okay, Milt… might as well open ‘er up.”
The fourth engineer nodded easily and threw the switch. A few flashguns conjured memories of Christmas. Milt obligingly reopened the switch and threw it again for the photographers’ benefit.
Grumbling about the inclement weather and hoping
100
A Miracle of Small Fishes
they could make it home before dark, the newsmen shuffled away. The representative functionaries exchanged signatures on the traditional scrolls and went their separate ways—one to his wife, the other to his mistress. The fourth engineer performed a routine check of dials and meters to ensure that the closing of the switch opened what the manuals claimed it would, and he went to try and rewire the lamp he had promised his spouse he would fix. Then the chief engineer returned to the gustatory pleasures of ham sandwich and pickle. All was quiet again.