I noticed the mole last Tuesday while I was out back pruning the climbing roses. It’s tiny—not even three millimeters—but it’s dark, almost obsidian, and it has this jagged little edge that looks like a goddamn warning sign. I’m only thirty-two, but some days the sun and the dirt make me feel twice that age. I think humans have this built-in biological glitch where we can handle a slow, grinding decline, but the second we see a concrete symptom of an END, we just... short-circuit.