Intro Flavor

Every generation seems to have a defining moment - a "where were you?" day when the world inexorably changed for the worse. 7/7, the Indonesian tsunami, 9/11, Challenger, JFK, Pearl Harbour... I'm pretty sure that back in the early Fifth Century citizens on the fingers of the Empire always remembered where they were when the got the news that the Visigoths had sacked Rome.

The problem of my generation - the survivors - is figuring out which day was The Day. Was it nerve-gassed bodies fallen in windows across the Paris suburbs? Russian tanks summoning up ghosts of the Cold War as they slunk through Kiev? Nuclear flowers blossoming in the Belorussian Union? The great engines of the world grinding to a halt as darkness fell like a hammer on the European Union? Winds off Lake Michigan fanning a firestorm that reached higher than the jagged stump of the Sears Tower? Pinpricks of the light in the high orbitals as the lights at home went out forever?

I can tell you where I was on each of those days. Quite frankly, they all sucked. Today isn't much better, and I can't even tell you where I am now, let alone where I'll be tomorrow.