First Round at the Market Tavern

The Decreed

Why is May 16 such an important date to remember? Because that is precisely the day that the world ends. It will begin with omens and portents such as Shiva, Goddess of death turning her starry gaze earthwards from the heavens and gnashing her teeth. This will occur on April 21 because I have calculated, quantumly, that Shivas Avatar is my ex wife who shares her birthday with Hitler on the 21st day of April making it a pretty shoddy day overall and perfect for some portentous omens, not to mention making a decent pre omen in advance of the total annihilation of man on May 16, of next year.

Whoops, wait a second here. I've got my calendars mixed up. It's May 27 that the world ends. Year after next. Shiva will still probably show up next year still, it's a big role for her and the extra year will just give her more time to add to her skull collection and act as a general nuisance until the main event. It's fitting, after all, that it should land on the anniversary of some seriously suicidal decision making that led to me be married to a goddess of death. But no one writes a good end of the world prophecy without offending a god here or a goddess there.

They all want to participate, of course, but it is difficult to give them the spotlight that they crave so much. I'm completely avoiding Her though, even rearranging the entrails so she is underneath them. You would avoid her too if you know what's good for you. Run into her on a bad day and one of those arms will tear your head off. And the abuse that comes out of her mouth. It's enough to give up my stargazing ways and leave the end of the world to someone else. Not the gods, however, collectively they were about as useful as barnacles and just wander about smiting, feasting, fornicating and getting really into cosplay. Leaving the end times to those ninnies would be a disaster. Give them the credit, though, by all means, somebody has to clean up the mess afterwards. It might as well be them.

So between April 21 next year and May 27 the year after the world will be struck by many maladies that will all presage the same general organization of every religious end of days sermon that has ever been written. They will pile one atop the other until cascading down in a plague of plagues that will really annoy just about everyone, rendering much of the planet uninhabitable and the sun and moon will bounce wildly on the horizon as different deities compete for the rights to swallow them whole and plunge the earth into the darkness of eternity. But first Ragnarok and if any of them survive they can enter new Jerusalem as a city sized ship sinks towards ground, scorching it molten and squashing anyone who doesn't get out of the way.

I know I may have missed the proper date for the end of the world before, accidentally of course, but this time I've really got the quantum kicking and the chicken gizzards frankly glowed with divine power. 2006 was almost the date but that was merely a taste of fimbulwinter. In 2009 I was distracted and it's none of your business why I was distracted. I'll let you imagine for yourself. Just think something idiotic and based on a skewed risk matrix. 2012 was a bust, I got caught up in some new math which caused me to err on the asteroids distance which you can't blame me for, I don't know anything about math. 2015 was the end of the world, but again I got the numbers and letters backwards. It was only the end of my world due to the aforementioned wedding to Shiva Goddess of death in her earthly Avatar. Hey, I was moving up in the world. Before her had been a dark elf with a twisted brain and before that, well, I'll let you guess again. Just think really bad decision maker. 2018 was a given but that fizzled out along with all my electronics, that melted when I used them to search for signs that the earth would be saved in the nick of time. The resulting explosions were quite spectacular but it was turning the battery packs into grey goo that really told me we were screwed. Then I got thrown off by 2020 because I expected 3 years to prepare and the world went mad in 2. I was eager to get the prophecy rolling so was hesitantly pleased that it was going to be a virus. That miscalculation is not on me, it's on the whole world. I should have known better right out of the gate that year. There was just too many misinterpreted omens. Floods were just floods, rivers naturally ran red without divine intervention and the whole thing short circuited and calm returned. Right, calm returned. Everyone was happy and danced in the streets.