ABSTRACT
It is Sunday, 27 March 1988, and the sun rises spectacularly from the sea. It is three minutes to six, a magnificent morning with a cool and pleasant breeze. Frigate-birds draw their first loops in the morning sky, and large schools of tuna jump in the waves, hunting small fish for breakfast. Paramoh, our small village, is asleep. Only I am up. I go for a swim in the ocean, where I have the intense sensation of being alone with the rising sun, the frigate-birds, the jumping tuna and the endless, orange South Pacific. I have three more minutes before the cutting sound of a piece of metal, hammering away on an empty gas cylinder, will drive everybody from the sleeping mats. My brother Chipeul, who is responsible for waking us, has asked me to furnish him with my watch, and he never misses a minute now. Everybody on Nauna would probably get up at six in the mornings anyhow, but Makasol prescribes an almost military discipline that stipulates how, when, and by whom we are to be wakened. Chipeul's gas cylinder does not produce an agreeable sound, though, and it ruins the enchanting sunrise.
