Here's How It Ends

Here's how it ends: he gets the girl. He gets the money. His loyal sidekick jumps up from behind the rock and shouts Hey! distracting the firing squad. The sidekick is cut down, but the girl and he escape through the treacherous badlands, and the sidekick ascends to Glory in an orchestra of sentiment. Around the vicious curve, his car skids by sideways, on two wheels, while the enemy careens over a cliff and is tumbling, tumbling, tumbling, and explodes! In a fight, he knocks the enemy off the scaffolding and leaps in the water before the gas tank explodes! She fears him drowned, but he emerges from the sea! The mysterious sheik removes his veil and is not the sheik at all, but the sidekick, not dead! The sidekick is not dead at all! The girl is not dead at all! The palace is on fire but the king alive! The oil tanker is sunk but the loveable captain alive! The rocket is wrecked but the robot walks! The cadillac is swallowed by the quicksand , but the happy pimp with the heart of gold laughs, though the briefcase full of money sinks with it, in the trunk! Why? Because the money is counterfeit!

The detective slays the monster! The explorer defeats the mad scientist! The boy defeats the alien! The average man conquers the forces of darkness! And then he is with the girl.

And then he is with the girl.
And then he is with the girl.
And then he receives his rich reward.
And then he kisses the girl.
And then the sun goes down.
In the life raft.
On the shore.
In the plucky little town.
On the frozen tundra.
In the speeding convertible.
In the posh watering holes of Glittering Manhattan.
In the lush jungle.
On the dock.
In glamorous Monte Carlo.
In mysterious old Baghdad.
In the desert.
In the forest.
In the hills.
On the courthouse steps.

In the center of the sea.

-doughty