The EndOfThisWorld Chapters

He walks into the bathroom. It is too early to go for a walk... at 4.31 am. He decides to shave. No. That will make too much noise. He heads to the kitchen to make coffee. In the cupboard, the coffee jar is not to be found. He thinks about going back to bed but he has the jitters. No. The TV is a better option. He plonks down on the sofa and flicks the TV on.

Los Angeles, CA – 2:25PM

Star approached the intersection at Fairfax and Olympic, rolled down her window, lit up a joint and cursed her life. For over an hour she sat trapped in her car, traveling no more than a mile, convinced she would surely die as a result of smog-induced lung cancer. With four cars separating her from the intersection, Star peered ahead and noticed the cause of the mess – the traffic lights were out, and people, typical for L.A., were not yielding. Cars were entering from all directions, swerving, horns honking, and tempers flaring. Star smiled as a vision wildebeests entering a crocodile infested river popped into her head.

Staring intently across his cell, his eyes fixated on the passport photograph centred precisely in the middle of the white baron wall. The only object adorning his cell was the face of perfection, a vision he had observed and studied faultlessly over the past 4 years, 8 months, 10 days, 16 hours and 30 minutes.

Stuart "Red" MacHeath allowed himself the smallest of smiles to creep into his otherwise dismal day, as he shoved his Freightliner further into the intersection. From his vantage point out the side window of his truck, in what had the feel of a front row seat to the demolition derby, he watched the young girl in the Ford Tempo smash violently and in his professional opinion, intently, into the much more expensive Porsche. In his rear-view mirror now, he could see the two women locked in a screaming fit, mere feet from the intersection at Fairfax and Olympic; tempers were definitely flaring on this particularly nasty travel day.