Every thing passes except for the last thing, but problematically, every thing feels like the last thing. Every moment soaked in happiness feels as if it will be wrung out and never dampened again, every crisis threatens to grow and grow until it overshadows life itself, and every time I wait for the elevator I feel that it could never come because I will have dropped dead before it can reach me. Every day is my last day and I will go out with a bang.

On the loudest, biggest, most colorful, most watched, and best day of my life I will die, by fate or by my hand. This I have known for as long as such things have mattered, since long before I burned the last punchcard, before I left the grids forever, and almost exactly at the same time I met Louise. Each time my eyes catch hers I am sure it is my last moment, for who could protest dying while staring into everything they have ever wanted? I would not, and will not, when my time comes.