The periods of power lag became longer and more frequent, and I started scanning around for signs of human habitation, the lights of a distant farmhouse, the glow of a far-off town, something to indicate there was somewhere we could take refuge if need be, but there was nothing, fuck all, just blackening sky and the endless thickly spinning snowflakes and the road that was disappearing, becoming buried, merging into the countourless whiteness all around.

We were out in far-flung hilly countryside, north of most of the cities I knew of, the furthest north I'd ever been without ending up in Och-aye-the-noo-land — where they painted their faces blue and called chips salad — and there was nothing like civilisation any more, not here. We'd left that behind us in this half-arsed venture of ours. Half-arsed venture of Abortion's, to be precise. It was all his idea, and I'd just gone along with it for want of anything better to do, any other viable option, and honestly, a bloke whose nickname was Abortion… He'd been christened that by a sergeant major on his very first day of basic (because, apparently, he looked like a foetus — and he did, to some extent, in certain lights, all bulging-eyed and big-foreheaded) and he hadn't been able to shake it off since, and why the hell had I listened to him, of all people? A man who measured out his life in quarter-ounce wraps. Which of us was the bigger fool for embarking on this journey, this wild goose chase, in the face of the worst bout of weather anyone could remember? The addled dope head, or me, the supposedly sane, normal guy?

And then, a miracle, hallelujah, out of the blue, a petrol station appeared. A BP garage. Lights on. Open. With a covered forecourt that was more or less free of snow. The sign even promised a cafe, just above the orange digits displaying the eye-wateringly high prices for a litre of diesel or unleaded.