End of a Cycle

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It was almost 11:30 when Samantha turned off the TV. She’d been watching NBC’s New Year’s Eve 2020, and just before the screen went dark, Carson Daly had asked someone in the audience about their New Year’s resolutions. Until then, the impending reality of 2020 felt as distant as it had in January of 2019. Then the audience member spoke, a young man in his early twenties—”In 2020,” he said, “I’m going to eat right and lose weight”—and Samantha’s entire world turned...