Prologue

For the most part, things don’t go well. Young people can talk with bright eyes about love and romance, but men in middle age cannot live on that alone.

It’s unfortunate, but I know nothing lasts forever. Yes, things may be valuable precisely because they don’t last forever. It can be said that we enjoy the beginning because there is an end. Because of death, we value life. Because of destruction, we value creation. That is the way of the world.

But what would happen if we found something that was truly eternal? Ah, what a tragedy. A tragedy that is a comedy, but a comedy that isn’t funny.

So sometimes I wonder. Maybe the end is relief. Perhaps things like death and destruction are a kind of salvation—as if to say ‘enough is enough.’ Perhaps this is a mercy given by the true god... if such a being exists.