“Okay, okay! Fine! I’ll do it! Sheesh!” Shannon said, waving irritably at his friend and enemy. Shannon had come to think of the man as his frienemy. “Don’t you even want to watch the fireworks first?”

“No,” Steven said, “What I want is to chop off your head and get the hell out of here while there is still time. Those idiots won’t stare lovingly at the sky forever.”

There was some smidgen of truth there, it seemed. Some inner wisdom to Steven’s words Shannon lacked the intellect to divine. Had he been a smarter man he might have even written a final haiku about it.

People wouldn’t always lovingly stare up at the sky, would they? By his account they had and would continue to do so until the end of time. He set the tepi...

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