Attu excerpt -- "sixty six more days"

 

Darling darling darling. The little pink sheet I have tacked on the side of the cabinet next to my bed -- fastened beside the picture of you in the Moldavian middle -- has only sixty six numbers left to cross off. Each morning when I awake my first duty is to take a pencil and block out another letter, then announce the score: Sixty-six more days, six six, I say again, sixty-six more days, six six. This is the technique we use in ship-shore radio broadcasts and until I've intoned it I am not officially awake. The other day I forgot and three guys asked me. They all check daily, too, to see I'm not cheating on the calendar.