It’s been so long, you sometimes forget that eventually, IT will HAPPEN.

It’s impossible to say when IT will HAPPEN. But it can’t be too long until IT HAPPENS. Looking at the data (age, high-stress job, cardiac history), it is statistically plausible that IT will HAPPEN in the next thirty-six months.

Eighteen, if you factor in hamburger consumption and all the weird bruising.

Of course, it doesn’t feel right to want IT to HAPPEN. And it’s obviously not okay to try to make IT HAPPEN. That’s not what this is ABOUT, just to make things CLEAR LEGALLY as far as VARIOUS AGENCIES are concerned.

But regardless, IT is going to HAPPEN. So you’re allowed to think about IT.

Theoretically, some longevity breakthrough could happen that would enable IT to NEVER HAPPEN. Just the idea is PSYCHOLOGICALLY COMPLICATED. But realistically, IT will HAPPEN. After all, the medical research apparatus will shortly be fully dismantled, unless IT HAPPENS soon.

So, it’s fair to say that IT will happen. But you also prepare for the possibility, even if unlikely, that IT won’t HAPPEN for a long time. Some of you may not last long enough to see IT HAPPEN, which is RICH.

But you imagine where you might be, eventually, when you learn IT has HAPPENED.

Maybe you will wake up, anxious and scared and angry (i.e., normal).

Walk past the armed men and the protesters and the destitute.

Then, out of nowhere, the push notification from THE NEWS: “Breaking: IT Has HAPPENED.”

What will you feel like? When IT HAPPENS?

When IT HAPPENS, it will probably be FEELING. Just a huge, overwhelming sense of FEELING, the kind where you didn’t even realize how starved you were for FEELING. Punctuated with alternating waves of SECOND FEELING, as well as SENSATION.

Plus, a sudden absence of THIRD FEELING, which makes you realize the toll of A CONSTANT BASELINE OF LOW-GRADE THIRD FEELING for ten goddamn TIME PERIODS straight, even though you were still plenty aware of THIRD FEELING, trust me.

How might IT HAPPEN?

It may be morbid, but as it happens, there are many ways IT could HAPPEN.

Heart attack.

Golfing mishap.

An especially frightening NEWS SEGMENT on COASTAL CITY, which is generally not a statistically likely cause of IT HAPPENING, but is not out of the question, in THIS SPECIFIC CASE.

You may consider other WAYS IT might HAPPEN, especially when you are overwhelmed with THIRD FEELING.

You might then feel EMOTION, but don’t beat yourself up.

You wonder how THEY will react. When IT HAPPENS. It will probably be a complete SITUATION. It will be hard not to feel some amount of perverse SENSATION, watching THEIR POLITICAL FORTUNES.

And of course, you will have to tread carefully around RELATIVES, who will probably throw an absolute REACTION when IT HAPPENS. But WE can be MAGNANIMOUS in this new, post–IT HAPPENING world.

Still, you wonder what you’ll do, right after IT HAPPENS. Perhaps you will clutch your loved ones and watch TV, as the news anchors ACT APPROPRIATELY.

Perhaps you will SCREAM, out of OTHER FEELING.

Perhaps you will pop open a SPECIFIC BEVERAGE.

Perhaps you will scroll post after post.

Posts of INCREDULITY.

Posts of ANALYSIS OF WHAT COMES NEXT, WHICH CAN WAIT.

Posts of JOKES THAT EVEN YOU WOULD FIND TO BE IN POOR TASTE, NORMALLY, BUT NOT IN THIS CASE.

Posts SCOLDING THE PREVIOUS POSTS, AND POSTS REPLYING “WHATEVER MAN.”

Posts ABOUT OTHER TOPICS, AND IT’S LIKE, DON’T THEY KNOW IT HAPPENED?

Perhaps you will think of the countless people whose lives might have been DIFFERENT, if IT had HAPPENED sooner.

The important thing to remember, though, is that IT will HAPPEN.