Prelude to the drama about to unfold 1/2

"'It's the end of the world as we know it …'

"How could a little audio player in my head confer any evolutionary advantage? Warm water showering onto my scalp always drums up aimless contemplation. We'd discussed earworms once and concluded that they most likely serve no purpose as such. They might be no more than an artefact of the mechanism that allows us to make sense of what we hear.

"But this refrain's been playing on a loop for days now; much more persistent than any before. That begs consideration of an hypothesis we hadn't considered. Might they do what a prelude does as it rises from the orchestra pit? Might it have been preparing me for the drama about to unfold? It's hard to see midnight as anything other than 'the end of the world as we know it …'"