The end of the world is coming; do you feel fine? I know, I know,
you've heard it all before; Nostradamus, Millenium hype, Henny Penny.
But this time we've a venerable figure from Christian lore to set our
revelation alarm clock: no less a personage than good ol' Archbishop
Usher. He calculated that the earth was created on October 23, 4004
B.C.E., (Before Christ to him, I s'pose). He also claimed that the holy
host of schizophrenic angels have a hot date with the demonic hostess [?]
of devils penciled in for sometime in 1996... umm, doesn't that only give
us a few months?
The agenda goes something like this: they all come here to party it
down and settle it once and for all time. God on high and the Devil
abyssmal get to stand on their proverbial hilltops and watch the demons
and seraphs, succubbi and archangels battle for the fate of humanity.
As claws rend wings and Michael shrieks his defiance, the surface of the
Earth will be torn all to hell in the process.J Sheesh, no
respect.
My questions: Does the winner bother to bring the leftover humans
with them when they leave? And do we get the option NOT to go if our
home team loses?
What's the worth of a human soul, anyway? Why do those Eternals
collect them like baubles? The ownership of one soul brings a human skads
of grief. Hmm. One soul probably isn't worth much to the supernaturals,
either. Maybe collecting souls is saving pennies for a rainy doomsday, or
like the effect of millions of tiny duck bites... eventually it builds up
until it drives them mad.
All you dust-joiners can ponder that while we immortal-types sit back
on our haunches and watch your minds squirm under the pressure of the
concept. The apocalypse is easy if you're prepared for it. Be ready to
Ragnorok and roll! Make the apocalypse work for you! Be a free agent of
the revelation! Ride your own seven horned, three headed beast! There
must be fifty ways to leave your mortal skins behind and take the next
step. Christ's got John the Divine, Lucifer's got Skinemax, and I'll
show you how to go Indy yourself. I'll have to have your essence for
dinner, of course; it's included in the fee for the lesson.
Don't fret, though: despite the rapidly diminishing time on your
cosmic punch card, you'll be well warned before The Time gets near enough
to smell the sulphur from your living room TV couch. To kick off
humanity’s finale, there'll be wars and destrction all over the nightly
news. Then you'll begin to notice a rise in disease and all-around bad
feelings in yourself and your neighbors. At some point in the series,
you'll probably hear news of a sea somewhere being as red as blood, or in
fact actually being blood...it's time to worry. You should be able to
get news of all these signs from the comfort of your own living room, so
there's no need to move any more than necessary. The final sign of the
coming apocalypse is the swelling television budgets as the intelligence
of the programming plummets into the moron zone.K At least the
quality of advertising has been consistently high, but it's obvious that
it requires much more thought than the shows themselves.
But, you ask bravely, how do I prepare myself? Well, we say, for
$3000, you can buy yourself a week in a survivalist compound outside
Atlanta, Georgia where they'll teach you "to survive in any violent
situation" provided you're a vicious, paranoid monster. A precourse in
paranoia and monsterism is also offered. The ad doesn't say anything
specific about armageddon training , but the end of the world ain’t no
dinner in the church hall; if your newly acquired skills don'’t protect
you from the slobering hoardes, you could sue the survivalists for false
advertising.L
Heed the words of the venerable Bishop: this little section of the
multiverse will soon be in an uproarious war for the living souls of
billions of humans. You'd best cast your vote for the winning team, lest
ye be left in a lurch (or eaten) when we come to claim you all.
J- Or heaven, depending on who wins.
K- I knew as soon as Married with Children started to become popular that
it was all over.
L- We expect to be able to find a horde of lawyers in underground tunnel
systems... the only ones left alive, eating cockroaches to survive (or is
it the other way around? Maybe the cockroaches will build the tunnels and
keep herds of lawyers as livestock, since they require almost no care and
very little food, as humans go.)
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