On the eve of his 40th birthday, a man decides to end his life. He tells us that 40 is “a point of passage… when maturity begins to decline toward old age. I wanted to be off while I was still thirty-nine, if only technically.” He chooses to drown himself up in the mountains where a sealed lake that “doesn’t communicate with the outside” will ensure his body vanishes without a trace. As he sits on the lip of a well connected to the lake, though, debating the quality of Spanish brandy, he realises his body won’t let him die. Hours later, he finds himself walking back to the village, only to discover that everyone he knows is missing. As the days pass, as he widens his search, including the bustling (and fictional) city of Chrysopolis, now empty and silent, the man comes to realise that he is the last person left alive.