It's a Chinese curse:  May you live in interesting times.  I often wondered about that, but now I know.  Ignorance is truly bliss and I wonder if I'll ever be able to go back to being ignorant.  Or blissful.  Or, for that matter, go back at all.

Three years have passed since the dinner.  Three years since I came into contact with the Phoenix Foundation.  Is it only three years?

I now own a gun.  I've never needed a gun before.  Never wanted one.  It's only got one bullet, mind, and that's definitely the bullet with my name on it.  There's a wonderful exchange in Blackadder Goes Forth.  Blackadder hears Baldrick scratching something onto a bullet.  "What's that you're doing?"  "I'm writing my name on this bullet."  "Why?"  "Because they say that out there there's a bullet with your name on it.  I thought if I owned the bullet with my name on, I'd be unlikely to be shot by it."  I'm keeping the bullet with my name on it precisely because I'm going to shoot myself with it.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow.  But soon.  And I pray to my god, the god of my father and grandfather and all the Konstantins before them that I don't come back.  If I end up like Annie I don't know what I'd do.

I still live in the same flat as I did three years ago, still work for the paper, still run to work.  I don't run with my iPod anymore, though.  I want to hear what's going on around me, want to know if anyone, anything, is following me.

Why did I say yes?  Why?  Blue pill.  Red pill.  Took the wrong bloody pill.  I'd like my memories wiped, like to be re-inserted into the Matrix.  Maybe as a movie star.  Yeah, that would do.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain...  Seen things, done things I'm not proud of.  Things I wish I'd never done.  A restful night's sleep is something that's a dim and distant memory.  I don't remember ever not being tired.  Or jumpy.  Past, present, future.  Nothing's constant, nothing's fluid.  Maybe I could invent a time machine, travel back to the night of the dinner, stop myself from ever getting in that limo.  Or further back, destroy that envelope before I could open it.  Or further back, kill my grandfather before he met my grandmother.  At least I know why they never talked about her.  It.  Her.

When my phone rings, my fingers twitch.  It's not just the herd that can use the phone, you know.

Button, button.  Who's got the button?  Who's finger is on the button?  The missiles are flying. Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

One gun.

One bullet.

I hope I don't miss.  Not for my sake - for yours.