The first shot wasn’t personal and I had warning. Not much, but some. The Holylands were destroyed. The land that had been locked in time for nearly 40 years had finally been discovered by land developers and they had consumed it voraciously. The land was pocked with the shells of disemboweled temples and empty lots in ruin. The ocean was not concerned, thank goodness and continued to throw out its energy with abandon. It was the only place that was safe. I never thought that the Holylands would change though I don’t know why I never thought it would. It seemed permanent, the foundation of my scattered existence, the only connection I had to my childhood, the dream-world, whatever planet I belonged to, whatever place I was eventually destined for. It was the only place when everything came back into phase and I was whole. Suddenly those strings were disconnecting and there was nothing that could be done but let it wash away. I returned home from the 2005 pilgrimage completely out of sorts, only to greet another shot as it smashed into the side of my skull.My great-grandmother died.My great-grandmother was humanity’s hope for eternal life. She was going to forge it from the void of mortal impossibility with sheer will alone and she was succeeding, until suddenly all at once reality got wise. Of course it is ridiculous to believe that one can live forever and I doubt I ever really believed she was doing it, but my subconscious had other ideas. So long as Great-grandmother lived (and she lived like normal people, not half passed on at a nursing home), then no one in our family could die, or at least the possibility for immortality would continue to exist. All hope of that is now lost.Now all that was left was the Now. The past was becoming erased with the Holylands and the future was no longer protected by my great-grandmother’s crusade on the ultimate destiny. All I had now was what I could gather Here in my hands. I had gathered a lot, actually, a home, a job, a life that I could reasonably sustain. It was an accomplishment that seemed impossible to achieve for so much of my life, but it was here. It was.Until Mayer/Berkshire fired the final shot deep into my brainstem.And terminated me.