We built a box, just one box, that could survive the end of the world. The search began for a person, just one person, to fill it, to sit in it and emerge afterwards. We consulted scientists who had every parameter. We spoke with philosophers who surmised every angle. We talked with the religious who prayed on it. But in the end, the one person could not be found.

After all, we were told, who would want to step out of the box to such loneliness? To desolation? Man went to the moon and Armstrong walked it with another. Man dived to the deepest depths in submarines that held at least two. Lewis had Clark. Even Nietzche was followed by Heidegger.

And who will follow us? Not one person. Memory only lives in the minds of the living.

We discussed what should go into the box. Trinkets? Our greatest art? Inventions? Boxes are not the place for hopes and dreams. Interpretation and study live only in the minds of the living.

At last we decided to leave the box empty and await the coming end. It would survive. If some future being comes upon it, the box will be testament to the most fundamental reality of its makers: that together we were something, and apart we are nothing.