77 Shadow Street

One

I am the One, and I see all.

But the blind man in Apartment 1-A is blind in many ways, as are all human beings, even those with functioning eyes. They are blind to their folly, to their ignorance, to their history, to the future that they will make for themselves. A future born of self-loathing.

Even those who know that the twenty universal constants ensure a universe that will support life, who know intellectually as well as intuitively that the human race must be exceptional and must be graced with a destiny, even they are capable of hating not only others of their kind but also their kind in general. Some are capable of such self-loathing that they fantasize a world without humanity and take comfort from that dream.

The concierge is not one of them, but she will die with the others, with the billions who will perish between her present and my present, which is her future. She might have gone far in the hospitality business, but the material success her kind pursues cannot provide her life with meaning. She is one of those who, had she not been cast into my kingdom, might have found her meaning in time. She might have become one of those who would stand up against the misanthropes, the people haters, to save humanity. But there are too few of her, too few with her insight and drive and tenderness of heart; for humanity to survive, it cannot afford to lose even one like her. But she is now mine.