Back then, wanting to live long enough
was so easy-peasy; so rosy-dozie. But
when it was proclaimed resolutely on
today’s teevee that it was the end of
an era, and this was furthermore done
in a giddy fashion seemed to have the
studio audience just as giddy in return,
I sure didn’t believe it. I had known an
era or two. And they had ended. And
I’d been in denial afterwards for years.
When the scientists who measured
such things committed suicide, we
had absolutely no way of knowing
what an era even was. Or is. We
just knew from our own experiences
that it was not a pretty thing, this
era ending. So, despite all of the
proclamations, those confident
announcements, I didn’t believe
a word of it. “This era will end
with the apocalypse,” I told my
pal Farrah, who, despite her name
was very 21st Century. “Lighten up,
Dude!” she said. It seemed like her
favorite thing to say to me. And it
was obvious that she was annoyed.
She was already on that end of an
era bandwagon. I felt a sudden
twinge of nostalgia and, truth be
told, a rather extreme desire, more
than just a resigned readiness, to
welcome that apocalypse with the
widest grin I could muster, which
would be a small representation of
my likewise overly outstretched
arms, held in such a way that
revealed how craven they were
for the tightest embrace they’d
ever known. “That’s just way
too much,” thought a willing
yet sorely disappointed Farrah.
