There are many ways the world might end.

Asteroid.
Pandemic.
Artificial intelligence deciding it prefers dolphins.

But few have considered the most probable cause:

Kate misplacing my notes.

Somewhere in this house—beneath a teacup, inside a cookbook, or disguised as a grocery list—is a crumpled page containing ideas so essential that, without them, the future of civilization becomes… negotiable.

I am not being dramatic.

(That is Kate’s position. She is wrong.)

On that page were:

• a workable outline for global peace
• three business models that would have embarrassed Wall Street
• and a dentist joke powerful enough to unite warring factions

Gone.

Vanished.

Possibly recycled into something cheerful and entirely useless.

Kate remains calm.

“Oh, it’s somewhere,” she says, with the confidence of a woman who has never had to reconstruct the fate of humanity from memory.

A sock can be somewhere.
A spare key can be somewhere.

The future should not be “somewhere.”

I searched:

• the desk (twice, then a third time with moral outrage)
• the kitchen (a known paper-disappearance zone)
• and what Kate calls “a safe place,” which has never once been safe

Nothing.

Lesser men would panic.

I, however, have a plan.

The Jaron Preservation System

Having glimpsed the edge of oblivion—also known as our kitchen counter—I have implemented a system so robust that even Kate, gravity, and time itself will struggle to defeat it.

1. The Master Archive (Clean)

• Essays Final
• Novels Final
• Screenplays Final

No clutter. No duplicates. No files named “final_final_really_final.”

Only the material civilization might reasonably require.

2. The Local Vault

External drive. Immediate access. Immune to teacups.

3. The Cloud (Silent and Watchful)

Handled by Carbonite, which backs up everything while I sleep and occasionally look for my glasses.

They will even help me find a file.

This places them slightly ahead of Kate.

4. The Emergency Brick

For $99, Carbonite will mail me my entire archive on a hard drive.

“The world ended, but I’m still writing” option.

5. The International Scatter Plan

• New Zealand
• Australia
• Fleet, Alberta.
• Pakistan

Flash drives distributed globally.

Should one continent fall, another will rise—carrying my essays like literary cockroaches.

Phase Two: The Eternal Jaron Initiative

But this crisis has exposed a deeper flaw.

It is not enough to preserve my work for next week… or next year… or even the next dinner guest.

No.

If Kate can misplace a document in under three minutes, I must preserve it for ten thousand years.

This is simply logic.

• My DNA will be preserved so future generations may reconstruct me if necessary.
• A compact archive of 900+ posts will accompany it, labeled:
  “Insert into brain upon arrival.”
• Copies will be distributed across continents, climates, and possibly one cooperative solar system.
• All materials will be protected against fire, flood, electromagnetic pulses, and casual tidying.

I have briefly considered launching a copy into space.

This may require a modest increase in funding.

Humanity must have access to my work—even if humanity itself becomes unavailable.

Kate has raised what she calls “questions.”

• “Where exactly are you storing your DNA?”
• “Why is there a flash drive in the freezer?”
• “Do we need to involve NASA?”

I have assured her everything is under control.

This has not reassured her.

At this point, even if:

• the house collapses
• the laptop revolts
• or Kate organizes something

…I remain operational.

And yet…

Despite the system, the backups, and the international redundancy—there is still a missing page.

Somewhere.

Waiting.

Probably under something harmless.

And when it returns—and it will—it will be in plain sight, exactly where it shouldn’t be.

Kate will smile.

“See? I told you it was somewhere.”

And I will nod, because experience has taught me she is both completely wrong…

and, in the end, infuriatingly correct.

Somewhere in the house, a missing page waits.

Somewhere in the world, a dozen backups sit quietly.

And somewhere—if Phase Two succeeds—there will be a version of me, gently thawed, fully restored, and wondering why the first thing he remembers is a dentist joke.

In the meantime, I will rewrite the page.

Better. Worse. Doesn’t matter.

Safely.

Because civilization must not depend on a single crumpled sheet of paper—no matter how brilliant it was.