The narrator wakes up in the middle of the night and tells himself that it's time for him to go to sleep. He's tired, he says, because he's been cooped up in his room all winter. He doesn't want to wake up the rest of the crew, because they're all going to be gone by the time he wakes up. He tells them that he can't go back to his room because the light is so weak in the winter. They're going to have to go outside and dig themselves out of the ice.