End of Days

Dearest Reader,

This may be the last time you hear from me for a while. Tomorrow, I finally succumb to the pressures of domesticity, sacrificing my body and common sense to the sadistic will of my mate. Ay, though the preparations have been in action for lo so many months, I confess a certain amount of hubris in believing that its arrival might never come.

Alas, I was mistaken.

My slow march to the gallows begins tomorrow morn, before dawn no less, when H and I will embark on an excursion that could well signify my ultimate demise. First, a stop at Jaime and Gaffey’s for my last meal before meeting my maker, then the long trek through the deserts and mountains of southern California to my final resting place: the snowy peaks of the mount the local indigens have dubbed “Ursa Major”—“Big Bear”.

Upon arrival, I’ve been instructed by my girlfriend/gaoler to pay inordinate sums of money for the privilege of strapping long poly-carbonate sticks to my feet, attaching spiked poles to my arms and hurtling myself down a hoary precipice towards the infinite. Should this initial run, under the tutelage of certified hellspawn/ski instructors fail to break me, I am assured that continued repetition of said hurtling should be adequate to spell my end.

But weep not, faithful reader! For I do not speak so thoroughly of this fate for purposes of aid nor pity. I extemporize merely to leave you with a last goodbye should I become deceased, incapacitated, maimed or otherwise harmed such that further correspondence in this space would be impossible. Farewell, reader, and thank you for your kind and patient patronage.

I leave you now with the famous words uttered by Sir Edmund Hillary upon being queried as to his assault on the peak of Everest. “Because it is there,” quoth Hillary, and thusly say I, save for one minor amendment: “Because it is there…and she’s makin’ me go.”

Yours truly,

bd