Reports of possible nuclear war and increased global armaments, along with warnings of environmental disasters, dominated the broadcasts. Oil was a problem, getting it and keeping it. Terrorism was on the rise. Rich men bombed and shot things. Stories of a contagion ravaging a country a mere two borders away peppered the local news, flanked by cheerful season-specific bumpers and chatty announcers covering traffic jam-ups. The world felt large and doomed, yet everyone seemed destined to carry on normally. Commercials blasted in between national news reports, as did the latest music about love, love lost, love never had. Global ruin was discussed constantly but no one could imagine it. It was like any other year.

I subscribed to the local newspaper. For all the research that was being done, I also had an internet service, which I used sparingly. I didn’t want to spoil myself. But occasionally I went on internet binges, the aim of which was the same as a junk-food binge: I would make myself sick and then swear it off completely. The glut of information, the hubbub of people who worked in the buildings around my property, all of it was a sickness. I could even feel it physically, like an exotic pneumonia, a pulling-down at the stomach, the chest area, a ragged feeling of need. I was determined to cure it. However, it’s one thing to wish for solitude, and another thing to embrace it. I understood that for all of my misanthropy, if that’s what it was, part of me still longed for the most basic connection—saying hello, or hearing someone work in another room. These thoughts disturbed me. They didn’t fit with the other feeling I had in most waking hours, the one that had boiled down to a low-level resentment within me, the grating torture of knowing others and being known. When my project was finished, ready to be inhabited, I wanted to be free of human contact once and for all.

That is why, in addition to the project-related preparations, I planned for practical eventualities like food, power, and basic necessities. I made an arrangement with the local food service to have my kitchen stocked every two weeks. This would be done without my physical presence. I interviewed several people for this task and finally chose a young man named Bernie who lived in the town at the foot of the mountain. He seemed just dull enough to never ask too many questions or overstay his welcome. He also seemed highly neurotic, complete with odd tics and fixations that centered on his appearance—he had glasses and wore jaunty vests, very White Rabbit-ish—and he was especially interested in time management, for which he had a giant wristwatch he constantly checked when he wasn’t rubbing his fingers along the creases of his nostrils and smelling whatever residue he found there. These eccentricities worked in my favor. As long as he was preoccupied with himself, I need not worry about his errant curiosity or unexpected visits.