Ayn Rand is Dead: Prologue

March 6, 1982.
 
In the dimly lit bedroom of her 34th street apartment, Ayn Rand is dying.
 
The sun is going down, but nobody thinks to turn on a light. In the gloom are five figures – the remaining members of her intellectual collective. Her breathing is laboured. In the corner a heart monitor quietly keeps regular, steady beat.
Closest to her, her withered left hand clutched in his, is Leonard Peikoff, Rand’s fading light reflected in his glasses.
 
“Leonard” she wheezes. “You understand me, don’t you?”
Pain and confusion flicker across his face. He can see that her once mighty intellect is fading. Months ago, when he saw her last, she was still very much the young passionate woman he’d know for thirty years, but now, in death, her age is showing. Her age and her fear.
“Of course.” He replies, the emotion of the moment faltering his voice almost as much as her fading life-force falters hers.
 
“You must carry on, Leonard. You must lead us now.”
For the past hour he has felt the tremor in her hand, and has held it steady with his own, but now the force has become too much for him. His reply is lost in a gurgle of phlegm as he begins to weep.
For the longest time only the heart monitor has a voice. Beep. Beep. Beep. Outside the window, the street lights flicker on in the city that never sleeps.
“Alan” she wheezes. “Where is Alan?”
 
In the darkest corner of the room, the shadow of a middle aged man, already with the wizened reptilian features of an ancient turtle in horn rimmed spectacles looks up.
Her shrivelled face cracks for a moment into a smile of recognition, her lips quivering.
 
“Alan, you’re the strongest of us all.”
He doesn’t reply, but holds her gaze for an eon, while she gathers her strength.
 
“Burn it down Alan. Burn it all down.”
She closes her eyes and smiles, her epitaph imparted.
 
In the corner the dreadful machine emits a long low tone. The monotonous peel of the end.
It is over.
 
Ayn Rand is dead.