Sometimes the only way to really forget everything is to go to sleep. Except that for me, sleeping is guaranteed to make me forget everything since the accident. So I can’t sleep just yet. I have a message to deliver to the International Council, one I must remember at all costs. The message I carry will turn the world upside-down in the best way possible. And it just might kill me to deliver it.

For centuries the world has looked, on the surface, like it’s going to Hell; while every philosopher has tried to figure out how to bring Heaven down, and every politician has tried to accomplish the feat. Their messages echo throughout history, as do the dismal and disgusting repercussions of those messages. Now I know why all their machinations, well-intentioned or ill, have so dramatically failed. It’s a high claim, I know. It sounds like arrogance or insanity, but - well, let me start at the beginning. Then you can judge for yourself.

When I was a young boy, green plants still grew outside of the domes. The air was still breathable, though sometimes heavily polluted. Many animals were still wild. Rain would not burn your skin. And the sect known as the King’s Men were unpopular in the West but burgeoning again in the East. My upbringing prejudiced me against the King’s Men, but the domes were their brain child, though others took credit. I joined the ranks of the philosophers as a teenager, and of the politicians a few years later, looking to halt the world’s descent into Hell and to bring Heaven at least within reach.

When I married as a young man, construction had begun on the first domes. They were originally used as shelters and farmland for urbanites, who were exposed to the most toxicity. Some called them arks, safe havens in which to ride out the “judgement we’ve brought on ourselves.” Many railed at the “exclusion” of country dwellers from much-needed protection. I and my community were railers, but when my first child was born I found myself relieved to have food and shelter in one of those big hybrid-glass bubbles.

By the time my first great-grandchild was born, the landscape was recognizable for a youngster of these days. Having spent most of my life in a reduced-toxin environment, my physical and mental abilities were largely still intact. (Granted, I wouldn’t have run any marathons, but I could get around just fine.) I had been retired from political office and working for the FDA for nearly 30 years. That’s when the accident happened.

((How long can a person function, live without sleep? What are side effects of extreme sleep deprivation? What kind of accident caused this abnormality? What must he remember? What part of the brain handles memory retention?))