Taggart had not had a very good day.

It had started out excellently. Taggart had been trying to find a way to get his bride's ex-husband out of her life. Several more subtle attempts before had failed. He finally found a completely legal way to get him out of the apartment she had allowed him to live in, due to a loophole in the contract that his lawyer concurred was totally sound. After he had convinced Kate it was for the best, he started his day by evicting the little twerp. A simple endeavor, and he had been looking forward to an early lunch and then a few holes of golf.

The universe, or at least something in it, had other plans.

When people began disappearing, it was at first to his fortune. He had been carried off in something that looked similar to a limosine despite his futile efforts to escape. When the traffic accident occurred he was shocked to find this limosine was able to fly, barely avoiding a collision due to the adept talent of its driver.

About that time it dawned on him that the short pipsqueak who evicted him from his own property, and his underlings who now had kidnapped him, were not from Earth at all. When the unmanned helicopter spiralled out of control and right for them, the aliens didn't stand a chance. Fortunately the 'limo' he was in had only been a few hundred feet off the ground at the time. He managed to crawl from the wreckage with some burns, bruises and scrapes but was otherwise intact.

A hospital happened to be only a few miles away. He limped his way there and demanded assistance the second he walked through the door. Waving his credit card and assuring the nurses of his impeccable choice in medical insurance, it didn't take long at all for them to see to his wounds.

Another person in much worse shape died in the waiting room because they couldn't get to that person and Taggart simultaneously, but Taggart was oblivious to this, as were the nurses and the doctor.

He smiled to himself. Once again his credit and checkbook revealed its power and he felt like himself again.

Then the dinosaur appeared and began attacking the building. Taggart managed to escape unscathed this time, but those people who didn't start disappearing all about him were not so lucky. He looked back about a half mile away to see the hospital reduced to rubble, and a very large dinosaur sulked off elsewhere looking for something else to do.

Taggart, logically, went in the exact opposite direction.

A ship that later appeared to be an ancient pirate ship almost materialized on top of him, out of thin air. He investigated the thing a bit, but was chased off by frightened looking cut-throats with large blades. They seemed just as surprised to see him as they him.

Unbeknownst to him the pirate ship and all those aboard disappeared only a few moments later. As had the dinosaur, only to reappear about an hour later in Japan to a much less warm reception.

Taggart had not done well in history, so there were many other things that appeared and disappeared about him, of which he didn't really take note. Plantlife that had been extinct for thousands of years suddenly blossomed.

At one moment he was running down a street, being chased by a stampede of elephants he assumed had escaped the nearby zoo. As he narrowly escaped by jumping between two parked cars, Taggart tore his suitcoat on the back bumper of an Edsel. He didn't take time to investigate of course, but the make and model of the Edsel would have shown him it was made in 1985.

Not common in his reality or most others, but there it was. And he was completely oblivious to it.

When he wasn't being chased by temporal anomalies, he would approach people and ask them if they knew what was going on. In response they would most often disappear right in front of him. Sometimes he'd have a brief conversation, but had he attempted to count, he would have lost count by now.

In fact, Taggart didn't even notice how they were disappearing. How different people were disappearing in different ways. Most of them were just popping out with a wooshing effect as the air around where they had been rapidly rushed in to fill the empty space. A few would disappear along with a strange silver and pink sparkling effect. Those people would often be screaming as they faded out, but Taggart hadn't noticed the difference.

Taggart never really noticed little things like that. Taking the time to smell the roses was certaintly nothing he'd ever done in his life. The reason was simple. Taggart was often too preoccupied with himself to notice anything around him unless it was to his immediate advantage.

For some reason, women seemed to like that about him, or so he thought. Well, he didn't think about it much.

As late afternoon began to turn into early dusk, Taggart had been able to catch his breath, and perhaps attempt to actually contemplate what had happened that day. His clothes were worn and haggard. He had long since discarded his suitcoat but his tie was still intact, hanging loosely about his collar. His expensive shoes would have to be replaced. He was a bit upset about that.

"Three hundred and eighty-seven dollars!" He yelled out loud to no one in particular as he sat on a park bench, examining his dress shoes. He then randomly combined a few expletitives in a rather unoriginal way.

The setting sun put a strange orange and red hue on everything, but the park was rather silent. Nothing had actually chased him or disappeared before him in almost fifteen minutes, according to his digital watch. He listened to the silence for awhile. He occasionally interrupted it with another expletitive.

It took awhile for it to dawn on him.

"I'm the last man on Earth!"

He was wrong of course. There were others, but he was most certaintly the only living human being in Kansas City, Missouri.

This realization bothered him at first, but he was rapidly beginning to find reason to be happy about this prospect. Provided he didn't suddenly disappear too, there were some advantages to this. He didn't like people very much anyway. They were either wanting something from him or were just in his way. Now, he didn't have to worry about any of that.

Unfortunately it meant he could no longer order someone to do things for him. He'd have to take care of himself, but before he became well-off, he had to do everything for himself and no one helped him. So, it wouldn't take much difficulty to get into the swing of that again.

He missed his wife. A bit. He had made his way to their house at one point, but her car wasn't there. No note. No indication. Furthermore the locks had been changed. He had to break into his own house. As he did this he remembered what that little man said. When he attempted to ruin Jacob Sydney's life, this little pipsqueak who he later surmised to be from some planet in which they had flying limosines had tried to ruin his life. They commandeered all his property and took over his company. Well, a lot of good that did them now. He had a good laugh at that, despite himself.

He had thought about complaining to someone that his wife was missing, but any phone number he called only had a busy signal, an answering machine, or it just rang. So he wandered, being chased less and less by time anomalies, and now was just sitting alone at this park bench.

He could go into anyone's house he wanted. Go into any store. Take whatever he needed and leave without paying a cent! The prospect of that alone suddenly excited him so much the encroaching depression he almost started to feel quickly flitted away. He stood up, suddenly wanting to go try that out even though he had no idea what he wanted. He walked across the empty street, remembering the location of a shopping mall just a few blocks away.

When he got there he learned that something had gotten there before him. Something much larger than that dinosaur, and he decided not to stay around to find out what it was.

He found a car that was in alright condition, with the keys still in the ignition. He reversed it off the curb and then drove around to the next closest shopping center. This one looked much more intact, and he smiled to himself as he carefully parked the car between the white lines and then almost got out of the car.

Then he realized he didn't have to park the car inside the white lines anymore and this thought equally excited him. He reversed the car and then parked it in such a way to where it took up three parking spaces. Quite smug about himself, he exited the car and strode to the entrance of the shopping center.

It looked like a ghost town. Fallen bags of purchased goods, trash and debris lay about the floor inside. There appeared to have been a bit of hysteria, and a couple people had apparently already come up with the idea of stealing things before he came along. A broken tv set was in the middle of the hall, where three halls converged on a JCPenney.

He theorized someone was carrying it out of the JCPenney when that individual disappeared, and the tv simply dropped to the ground. Taggart went to touch it, but then recoiled and backed a step away, thinking if he touched it maybe he'd disappear too.

Not a very bright thought, as it was totally unfounded, but one he personally felt very proud of himself to have thought. He realized he was very hungry, and in the mood to be very drunk. He still felt bruised and battered, and figured there might be something in the way of a restaurant and bar somewhere in the shopping center. He walked away from the fallen tv set and felt very good about himself, having survived something of which no one else on Earth seemed to have been able.

The only true reason why Taggart had been left behind was because he had been overlooked. Perhaps the cargo ship that had been scheduled to pick him up ceased to exist before it could take him. Perhaps had that been the case he too would have suddenly had silver and pink sparkles and also ceased to exist.

More likely, he was just overlooked by something much larger.

On Earth, Mannifred Taggart was a big fish in a small pond. A well-off man with the illusion of power and control over others. In the Grand Scheme of Things, completely unbeknownst to Taggart, he simply didn't matter.

In fact, the only reason he existed at that moment was because the universe, or something in it, hadn't noticed him. Furthermore it was unlikely to notice Mannifred Taggart, because at this point in the space and time continuum he was completely irrelevant to any algebraic equation that may or may not make up the Universe.

Taggart was forty-two years old.