Footnotes

1 Some texts contend that upon arrival, the prophet exclaimed: “It’s damn good to be back.” This constitutes a serious misreading of the original manuscript.

2 This work was conceived within the strictest confines of a three-day novel contest.  It is apparent from the manuscript, that it was exactly at midnight, on September 6, 1999, that the author was about to pen his final line.  It is supposed that he intended to write “… these four simple words”, in which case a total of five words (the word “words”, plus the four simple ones) are missing from the manuscript.  It is also entirely possible, though not hoped for, that what the author meant to write was “…these four simple volumes”, in which case we would deem the entire exercise a failure. - Ed.