Year after year, I am having an ordeal with heating oil this time of year. It is a nightmare. Pure torture. It takes about a week to get a cistern up the Motovun hill. And then it takes quite a bit of work to help it turn on the lower square before going in reverse down Borgo. This has to be done early in the morning, before tourists come in numbers. And there are busloads upon busloads of them even this late in the tourist season. Many tables and sunshades have to be moved for the cistern to turn around. Carrying some six tons of heating oil, it is on the small side, but it is gargantuan by the standards of a medieval hilltown. Anyhow, this morning I got a bit more than a ton of the magical liquid. The tank in my basement is full. And it will last me through this time next year. Thus I am elated. But I am fully aware that it is nigh impossible to describe my elation. I feel free. No, I feel reborn. Even more, I feel that my soul has squeezed into another and better world. And I feel like shouting at the top of my voice: “My yearly Golgotha is behind me at last!” I am exaggerating a bit, of course, but I am still not satisfied with my words. When it comes to heating oil, words fail me time and again. They feel flat. Vapid. Barren.