Carl Stellweg Once I was in the middle of nowhere. There was darkness all around me, impeccable darkness, but above me there were stars, sparkling with unreal splendor – never before had I seen so many. This was the night sky above the Pacific everyone raved about, and now I could see why. At last I had found my place under it. I had reached a destination I had never sought. And right in front of me was this very large aeroplane. Or maybe it only seemed that large because this was the middle of nowhere. The aeroplane reminded me of a whale marooned on a beach, although it was not lying on its belly, choking to death under its own weight like whales are prone to do, but resting perkily on its undercarriage, which made it look all the more foolish and forlorn, and as if it were dying. And I was standing there smoking and talking to a colleague of the Los Angeles Times, an amiable man I had met earlier that day in Tahiti. Tahiti, with its gargantuan thund