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            And that was it.  Since’s story ended abruptly and then he disappeared just as well.  By the time his last thoughts had settled in my mind and I looked up from my empty coffee cup, he was gone.  Later, as I write this, I cannot be absolutely sure that my experience with Since really happened.  I am not given towards hallucinations or such vivid dreams, yet something about the whole exchange seems bitterly unreal.

            Nevertheless, phantom or not, I owe it to my own conscience to tell this tale and to admit from whence it came.  The book was already being written before my meeting with Since, but it was because of that meeting that I was able to finish it.

            I don’t know if the idea of life as Since told it is acceptable as true, but it does, at the very least, make for a good metaphor.  We all seem to hope for immortality in some way, but what fashion can it take that we will find suitable forever?  Are the answers that we truly seek in immortality?  And where do our own memories fit into the value of our existence?

            If we are all purges, then our own ignorance is a lie.  What state has our own existence come to when we are willing to destroy everything we have done, only to temporarily forget that we are immortal?

While these aren’t exactly the questions that I will attempt to answer in my book, they do point out possible flaws in our own postmortem ambitions.

            I don’t intend to lay out each of my major points in this introduction.  Instead, I wish to tease the mind into thinking about these topics realistically.  Since’s story perfectly illustrates the fears that we all should have.  I will end this beginning with a reminder: be careful what you wish for.

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