First published January 1, 2008, the original work of fiction, "The End of Time," may now be closed to a brief comment in the reality of this, our own place and circumstance.

We may expropriate from future generations as much as we wish; in return, those future generations can take nothing from us but respect for who we were and what we did.

We have again and now plundered their land with our self-gratifying impunity, lying to ourselves that we are somehow doing this for them.

We are not. We are doing this for ourselves. We know that, and surely they will, too. Our choice of whether or not to acknowledge this is irrelevant: they, not we, control the words that will be inscribed about us in their history books.

In their time, in bitter disgust, those now very young and those yet to be born will plunder our graves of honor. It is their privilege and right; it is, in fact, their grim and solemn duty.

Without the past, which we have already bled of its treasure gifted to us, and without the future, which we are now about to bleed of its treasure gifted by us, we have reached the end of time, that circle of light in the present from which we have drawn what light the times that have passed could offer and from which we have no light to cast into the swallowing blackness of the ages and years to come.

Celebrate this day: we vanquished the past, and we have now sacked the future. Victory is ours.

The consequences are theirs.