Sonya told her friends, drunk and searing with challenge, that New Year’s Eve before the end. This was just before midnight, seconds before the world and all that was in it went spinning into the new millennium. Out came the tequila. Then it was “Ten! Nine! Eight!” and at “Happy New Year!” Sonya downed her shot spluttering and snorting, the booze scorching her nostrils, and almost instantly the whole night – the whole century, it seemed – swelled up from somewhere and everything went careening into a great vertiginous swirl of noise and light, and the next thing Sonya knew she was waking alone to the year 2000 and a head full of thunder. And everyone was gone. And the city was empty. And it was the end. It was just Sonya. There was no one else left. But, wait. That was not entirely true. On the radio, on every station, inescapable on either AM or FM, was the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, now known as , beckoning all female survivors to join him at Paisley Park.
