Nothing but the sound of waves foaming against black volcanic rock. A man sits alone at a desk reading verses of the Bible aloud to himself. Three white crosses stand desolate atop a bare green hill. All across the empty, silent island--a kind of Polynesian Scotland--moai, or worn, hollow-eyed statues carved from volcanic stone, are staring back at the new day as if it were the old.
Did a clock in Times Square just click over? Did some great historic moment just explode in the Millennium Dome? If so, someone neglected to inform the "living faces" that preside unchallenged over the...