住在一栋楼里的小镇

在阿拉斯加海岸一处灰暗寒冷的海湾边,坐落着一个名叫惠蒂尔的小镇,那里几乎全部居民都住在同一个屋檐下,确切地说,都挤在同一栋高耸的建筑里。可以毫不夸张地说,整个社区被折叠进了一个地址里。

On a cold, grey bay along the Alaskan coastline stands a town called Whittier, where almost the entire population lives under one roof, quite literally, packed inside the very same towering building. It is, without much exaggeration, a whole community folded into a single address.

那栋建筑共有十四层,最初是几十年前为军队建造的,那时它还远不是一个独立的小镇。如今楼里有公寓、一家商店、一间邮局、一个警察局、一间小诊所,甚至还有一座教堂,于是镇长、当地医生,还有卖给你牛奶的人,都层层叠叠地住在同一栋楼里。长长的内部走廊把每一层连在一起,这十分幸运,因为惠蒂尔每年冬天都会迎来大得惊人的降雪,居民们几乎可以不穿外套就完成大部分日常生活。就连孩子们也是通过地下的一条隧道去上学的。

That building rises fourteen storeys and was originally constructed for the army, decades ago, long before it became a town in its own right. It now houses flats, a shop, a post office, a police station, a small clinic, and even a church, so that the mayor, the local doctor, and whoever happens to sell you milk all live stacked one above another. Long internal corridors connect every floor, which is fortunate, because Whittier receives a truly formidable amount of snow each winter, and residents can go about most of daily life without ever pulling on a coat. Even the children reach school through a tunnel dug beneath the ground.

想要进入这座小镇本身就颇为奇特。汽车要穿过一条凿进山体的狭窄隧道才能进入,这条隧道还要和铁路共用,这意味着所有人都必须轮流通行。到了夜里,隧道彻底关闭,直到早晨才会有车辆进出。小镇就这样待在原地,在黑暗中温暖而明亮,一栋孤零零的高楼立在雪中,四周被群山环绕。

Getting into the town at all is stranger still. Cars enter through a single narrow tunnel blasted through the mountainside, a tunnel shared with the railway, which means everybody must take turns. At night the tunnel closes altogether, and nothing moves in or out until morning. The town simply stays where it is, warm and lit against the dark, one tall building standing alone in the snow, ringed by mountains on every side.