‘The end of the world is nigh…’
I chewed the tops off three biros trying to think of a humane way to break this to you… that is if you are among a majority who haven’t already heard the news. Anyway, I have no need to be nice to you any more, so here goes straight up; you don’t have long for this world – none of us do. You see, ‘Doomsday’ is upon us and the world is going to end on Friday 13 November. I know… I know… I too always claimed there was no such thing as Friday 13th being unlucky. Now we know…
This doesn’t give us much time, but what would you need time for? But come to think of it, we all have just enough time for one master stroke before Friday, so join the queue without delay and we’ll explain further down.
You don’t even get to enjoy the satisfaction of putting your affairs in order, because none of it matters because we are all exiting en masse. No, you cannot sell off anything; in fact you can give nothing away because your possessions are now no good to anyone. After all the centuries of fear-mongering and often firmly held beliefs, the end of the world is finally nigh. It has to be right this time because it is scientifically based.
We need to back-peddle to 1960. A paper published in the journal, ‘Science’ predicted the date the world would end as November 13, 2026. Yes, Lads… this coming Friday. And yes again, you can take the rest of the week off work. The paper was written by Austrian-American physicist, Heinz Von Foerster, alongside researchers from the University of Illinois.
Published at the height of the Cold War, the study came at a time of increased concern about the possibility of a civilisation-ending catastrophe due to resource scarcity or through nuclear proliferation. As you may imagine, the paper proved controversial at the time; but as it gave the Planet another 66 years to prepare for its end, nobody got too hot under the collar and the findings were filed away and forgotten. Now, tempus fugit… and as Brian Cowen said; ‘we are where we are.’
Lest you are clinging to the hope that this prophesy is way off the money, here is another one to back it up. Going back as far as 1947, a ‘Doomsday Clock’ was set up by the ‘Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’. This clock currently stands at 85 seconds to midnight – and has been slowly moving there over the last 80 years.
The thing that is bothering me most at the moment is that with the world ending on Friday, I’ll probably never get paid for this article – a sore one, taking account of the public service rendered to our readers. I bet the Lads are still with us, the ones who normally just read the first line every other week before deciding, ‘that sh#te isn’t worth reading!’.
The ones more deserving of our sympathy are the men and women with piles of money. The rainy day is here this weekend and nobody can buy their way out of this mess. Money is totally useless this week and forever more.
The only people with a crumb of satisfaction to chew on are those with big mortgages, huge debt and a small ball of money in a jam jar earmarked to fill the heating tank. That heat won’t be needed now… so go on and squander the dosh on yourselves! Party until midnight on Thursday like you was catching a Ryanair flight to Santa Ponsa.
But no matter how calamitous this rushed departure seems for the entire human race, some good comes out of every bad-looking situation and there are big winners here. The master-stroke we referred to in the first chapter is the ‘good confession’!
Those of us with a fornication file or a dynasty of debauchery have hit on the perfect exit strategy; the death-bed good confession. I know, I know, Gorls, it’s not fair; but would you like to hear the parable of the prodigal son? We are all the same and all in the same boat now.
Anyway, see you over yonder on the other side Friday evening. By all accounts, there will be a ‘Y’ in the road early on, as there are two different destinations. I would expect to see some of you at whichever resort is deemed most appropriate for this poor scrut.
Lastly though, if by any chance this is fake news (you never can be sure nowadays) and you wake up in your own beds on Saturday with your last euro squandered, not a bite to eat in the house, family not speaking to you and suffering a hangover, the man’s name is Heinz Von Foerster, and not the one you see at the top of this page!
Don’t Forget
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.