Part 1: The Vanishing
Jenna’s young eyes, ignorant of the names of the stars that lit the night sky, sought out the pole star, one of the few stars she recognised. She marvelled at how the other stars in the night sky seemed to gently revolve around the pole star. It was not magic, this much she knew. It was simply because the Pole Star happened to be aligned with the earth’s axis and therefore seemed stationary. She wondered about all the pirates and mariners in days gone by who had looked to the star for guidance in deep seas surrounded by treacherous waves. She reflected on the ancient people who had decided that the Pole Star was the abode of the gods. She thought of the poets and dreamers and lovers who had gazed at that star and felt a tumult of emotions.
She gazed in silence at the point of light. It seemed so much more brilliant than anything else in the night sky. It had an almost preternatural luminance. Jenna put it down to the unusually humid night and imagined it was the air acting as a magnifying lens. But surely, there was only so much the atmosphere could do to enlarge a star. Why then did it seem to pulsate like the glowing heart of a subaqueous beast? Was it her imagination, or did the star seem to grow imperceptibly larger? Was that even possible, she wondered? Was it growing larger, or was it getting closer? Could that be? She knew little about astronomy and the nature of astral bodies. But her common sense told her that stars didn’t look as large as the moon in the night sky. For that was how large the star had grown. At that moment, there seemed to be two moons in the night sky: One, the familiar old white orb, staid and subdued; the other, piercingly bright, and pulsating with different hues and seeming to rotate at a feverish pace. Jenna felt a pang of dread. A cold shiver ran up her spine. She felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and realised that this was an ominous sign. She knew instinctively that it was connected with the disappearance of all those people the newspapers had been reporting from around the world. She knew the world was on the cusp of something truly dramatic and momentous.
*** *** ***
In the months preceding Jenna’s vision of the bright light in the sky, newspapers and TV channels had been filled with reports of missing people. After the first week of wall-to-wall, on-the-hour-every-hour blanket coverage it emerged that not more than around three hundred and fifty thousand people had disappeared from different parts of the world. It was not a huge number—given that tsunamis, earthquakes, civil wars, mini revolutions, and miscellaneous genocides have consumed far more people at one go—but the inexplicable nature of their disappearance and the diverse cross section of the people involved were what kept the press engaged.
The internet was abuzz. Facebook users were poked from sunrise laxation to midnight libation. Tweeters tweeted from buses, trains, and cabs. Chat rooms were agog and the hot topic was what had quickly come to be known as ‘The Vanishing’. The blogosphere was buzzing with conspiracy theories, counter-theories, uniformed speculations, and bizarre hypotheses of what might have happened.
Email inboxes were full to bursting with chain mail and junk mail about rewards, punishments, lessons, requests, and pleas. There were numerous messages with advice on how to ward off possible abduction. There was a regular stream of mails that contained graphic details of what had happened to those that had disappeared. There were the inevitable exhortations to forward mails containing prayers to at least five others with the stern warning that failure to do so would result in the email users themselves being abducted. YouTube clips of the disappearances received millions of hits. Google and other search engines saw a sharp rise in ‘How to’ searches: ‘How to fight aliens;’ ‘how to greet angels;’ ‘how to hide from demons;’ ‘how to meet god;’ and ‘how to spend eternity.’
E-bay saw a rise in sales of rosary beads, holy shrouds, and other religious relics. Amazon saw their coffers overflow with rapid sales of holy books and other publications on alien abductions, obscure religions, medieval spells, voodoo, witchcraft, and miscellaneous tomes and tracts on the occult. Internet trolls and armchair warriors raged pitched online battles and attempted to outdo each other in their use of invectives.
Wikileaks released confidential communiqués from embassies around the world. It was no surprise to learn that the Brits suspected the Russians of orchestrating the abductions for purposes of mass brainwashing; the Arabs held the Israelis accountable as part of a Zionist plot; the Chinese held the Japanese accountable for trying to finish what they had started in world war two; the Pakistanis believed it to be an Indian ploy to convert people to polytheism; Cambodians suspected the Thai; Greeks suspected the Turks; North Korea suspected South Korea; and everyone suspected the United Sates.
Doomsday Cults saw a rapid spike in requests for memberships. Judgment Day placards were no longer held just by rambling vagrants but began to pop up in unexpected places like school assemblies and hospital wards.
Television saw a stream of reruns: ‘The X Files’ was much in demand. ‘Mars Attacks’, ‘They Came from Outer Space’, and ‘War of the Worlds’ were Multiplex favourites. ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ was sold out at DVD stores and ‘The Passion of the Christ’ disappeared off shelves in rental stores around the world.
Hollywood was quick to cash in and a spate of movies with titles such as ‘The Disappearing’, ‘The Taken,’ ‘The Lost,’ ‘The Hereafter’ and ‘The Occurrence’ were signed with a great deal of alacrity, with only some movie moguls wondering if it was too soon after the event to be making celluloid versions of it. But the voice of these naysayers was quickly drowned by those who sensed an easy opportunity to make a quick buck.
The dominant theory about what had happened was a toss-up between abduction by aliens and abduction by god. The two camps were quickly labelled the E.T.ists and the Rapurists.
The Rapturists believed that this was god’s doing. Not just any god—but their God—the god of the Bible. All this was simply a fulfilment of Biblical Prophecy. They were the ones who made the most noise about Armageddon and apocalypse and other eschatological events. There was a lot of disagreement among the Rapturists about what would happen next. Some talked of a period of Tribulation. Others talked about the arrival of the Beast. And still others talked of a cosmic war between good and evil.
The E.T.ists on the other hand claimed that this was the work of aliens. Not just any aliens—but aliens that were technologically advanced. There was some disagreement among them about the purpose of the abductions. Some believed that the humans they had taken were being groomed to spread the aliens’ message of peace. Others believed that the aliens had taken them so that they could conduct horrifying experiments on them with the intension of using them as human slaves for when the aliens decided to colonise Earth. Some talked of little grey aliens with big black eyes. Others described aliens that were tall and purple. Still others said they looked like giant slugs.
The sceptics, on the other hand, were steering well clear of the hysteria, hype, and hoopla. However, the media circus wouldn’t let them be. They were invited on news panels and talk shows and all said more or less the same thing: that it was too soon to say what exactly had happened and that the evidence was inadequate. Without more information everything would be mere speculation.
Insurance companies were quick to side with the Rapturists and decided not to fork out any money on policies as the disappearances were clearly ‘an act of god.’ Defence analysts, on the other hand, were unanimous in the opinion that this was an act of aggression by an alien race. This gave them just the excuse they needed to stock pile even more nuclear war heads and spend several trillion extra dollars on defence.
It was no surprise however that church attendance was sky high. The pews and aisles were filled to bursting. Long queues formed outside confession booths around the world with devotees falling head over heels in their attempts to admit sins and seek absolution. Pilgrimages to holy sites were the norm and mass prayers, all-night vigils, silent contemplation, and nonstop chants were the common place order of the day.
There was some pandemonium on the streets in the first few weeks. This was to be expected and surprised no one. When faced with the prospect of imminent annihilation by god or abduction by aliens for non-descript purposes it is but natural for good folk to take to the streets and torch cars, spray paint walls, destroy windows, and just generally run amok. After getting their initial rage out of their system and coming to terms with their confusion, people in most urban areas settled to a sedate stream of larceny, with only a few thousand daily rapes and the odd hundred case of arson.
People around the world reacted in different ways to the mass disappearance. Many people maxed out their credit cards. Some stockpiled bottles of water. Others hid in fallout shelters. Long lost friends spoke on the phone, quibbling lovers reunited, and estranged relatives made peace. Disgruntled workers flipped off their boss; teenage girls gave up their virginity; gravid women dropped their load; and randy men made unrestrained love to various kinds of exotic fruit.
Away in the Orient, there were incantations, recitations, and meditations galore. People became Yogis overnight and the lotus position was the posture du jour. Swamis smoked extra-large bongs and fakirs were surrounded in a perpetual hash cloud. The unwashed masses tripped over themselves to make appropriate sacrifices, take fervent oaths, and propitiate the plethora of deities with such goodies as coconuts, turmeric, and ghee-laden sweets, firm in their belief that this would appease the unseen powers of the cosmos that were behind the disappearances.
Countries began to embark on architectural feats of wonder. The Poles decided to build the world’s largest statue of Mother Mary as a companion to the largest statue of Jesus. Morocco decided to build the largest mosque in the world with the tallest minarets. The Indians decided to build a temple that could be visible from space. The Cambodians decided to carve a thousand statues of Buddha. And the state of Alabama began to dig the deepest hole, into which they hoped all the atheists of the world would fling themselves.
Transcendental mystics insisted that there was no disappearance at all and that it was all an illusion. New Age gnostics led by Deepak Chopra insisted that the ability to disappear was within all of us. Tantric swamis breezily asserted that the disappearance was nothing surprising as we all disappear at the moment of sexual climax—these people have simply chosen not to return. The metaphysicists insisted that the people hadn’t disappeared, because they hadn’t appeared in the first place. Quantum oracles stated that the people were in a state of atomic flux and quantum entanglement—they were, in fact, all around us. Christians averred they were in heaven. Muslims said they were in Hell. Hindus said they had been reincarnated. Buddhists said they had attained Nirvana. Vegetarians claimed they’d been eaten by meat-obsessed humans. Occultists claimed they were in the unseen dimension. Spiritualists said they’d become ghosts and poltergeists. Crystal gazers claimed to see them and psychic mediums channelled their voices.
The vast majority of people around the world, though initially quite taken by this news story, soon settled back into their routine. Children trudged to school; cleaners swept the streets; and malls were full to bursting once again. A week or so after the event, it was no longer top story on news channels, ten days later it just made it to the inside pages of daily broadsheets.
However, all that was to change quite abruptly with the occurrence of a singular event that would have a profound impact on humanity in this world.
*** *** ***
Jenna went to bed wondering what the object she had seen in the night sky actually was.
As night turned to day, millions of people across the world woke up to an enormous bright light in the sky. It shone as brilliantly as the sun but while the sun shone with its familiar white light, this new orb quivered and throbbed and spun ceaselessly. It had subtle shades of purple and vermillion and gold. Its light had a bleached effect on everything it was cast upon—almost as if it seemed to hide blemishes and cleanse and purify everything it came in contact with.
Scientists didn’t know what to make of it. Some claimed it was a renegade white dwarf star sucked in by the solar system’s gravity. Others said it was a lost pulsar wandering across the galaxy. Initial attempts to analyse the object proved to be a failure. Preliminary spectroscopic scans couldn’t reveal anything either, except that the light emanating from the object was highly polarized and blue shifted—meaning that the object was moving towards them at an enormous speed.
*** *** ***
The E.T.ists were quick to state that the object was the alien mother ship. This was their interstellar space craft and its enormous size and supernatural speed indicated they were an extremely advanced and sophisticated species.
The Rapturists were convinced this was the moment of the long-awaited Second Coming. The star was their lord and saviour Jesus.
The Rapturists had something going for them, because as the object moved closer its details became clearer. The light resolved itself into an almost anthropomorphic figure. Soon people could discern a face and hands and feet. Pretty soon it was obvious to everyone what they were seeing: A gigantic image of Jesus covering more than half the sky; soaring above the birds and towering above the clouds, complete with a crown of thorns, a halo, a bleeding heart, and pierced palms. The bearded face had a beatific expression. Long, silky brown hair rippled in the rarified stratosphere. Enormous piercing blue eyes gazed down upon the awestruck populace below. There it hovered above the oceans and continents. The figure was clearly visible during the day and glowed with an internal light at night. It never faded, it never moved, it never wavered—for thirty days and thirty nights a gigantic Jesus hovered over the world.
*** *** ***
Part 2: Armageddon
As was expected, chaos broke out all over again. The frenzied masses decided to let loose their frenzy right on cue. The lynch mob got on with their lynching. The rioters started rioting on schedule. The burners of cars and breakers of window glass did their job with the vigour and thoroughness come to be expected of them. The graffiti artists did an admirable job spraying messages of doom. The looters and arsonists didn’t disappoint. The rapists and pillagers got on with their task with renewed gusto. The makers and burners of effigies lived up to their reputation of yore. And the beheading crew had a pile of noggins that put decapitators of the past to shame. All in all, as far as pandemoniums (pandemonia?) went, this pandemonium was right up there with the best of them—an instant hit in the top 40 collection of chaos.
The issuers of fatwas were busy a-issuing. Promulgators of divine law began a-promulgating. Papal edicts, royal decrees, martial fiats came pouring out in rapid successions. Hollywood celebrities, ayatollahs, swamis, tin-pot dictators, and two-bit tyrants all weighed in and spoke out. Each twisted the news event to suit themselves.
Away in North Korea the official propaganda machine was having a difficult time keeping the event a secret. A giant Jesus in the sky was not easy to censor or hide. The official line was that Jesus had come down to pay obeisance to the Dear Leader and pass on regards from the Great Leader. A national song was immediately commissioned to commemorate the memorable occasion and the people were made to line up, wave national flags, and smile at the giant Jesus. Television was filled with blanket coverage of the figure in the sky accompanied by North Korean patriotic songs. The only interruptions were official bulletins that announced a ten-fold increase in the national production of rice and a hundred-fold increase in the daily ration of loaves and fishes.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, anarchy reigned on the streets. Protestants slaughtered Catholics; Shias did Sunnis in; Sikhs and Hindus put each other to the sword; The Jews wiped out the Coptics; and everyone killed the atheists.
The problem was simple: each group claimed the giant figure for themselves. The Protestants said it was Jesus. The Catholics said it was Jesus the son of Virgin Mary. The Sunnis said it was their Prophet Issa. The Shias said it was their Prophet Issa. The Hindus said it was Lord Krishna. The Sikhs said it was Guru Nanak. And the Jews said it was The Messiah.
The Atheists earned the wrath of everyone when they claimed there was no real figure in the sky. It was an advertising gimmick. The Vatican, they claimed, was rolling in money, and faced with the prospect of falling converts, they’d decided to stage this stunt. The atheists weren’t buying into it.
Scientists did their best to figure out what was going on. All they could say with certainty was what it was not. It was not organic. It was not a mirage. It was not a star or a pulsar or a comet.
Soon reports of miracles began to surface. Bottles of mineral water turned to wine. Perrier was now available in rouge and blanc—and in some parts of the world even rosé. Streams of pinot noir flowed in parts of Australia. Small lakes of chardonnay-semillon blends were reported in parts of France. (Local residents were not impressed. They said the wine was corked.) The Red Sea took on a whole new meaning.
Loaves of bread fell from the sky in parts of Africa and fishes seemed to multiply with disconcerting haste in aquariums around the world.
In farms, ranches, and piggeries, gangs of swine were reported to be throwing themselves into the sea—purportedly possessed by evil spirits and demons.
Fig trees withered and died in gardens and plantations around the world. Lepers were healed. The visually impaired became visually unimpaired and the locomotively-challenged began to sprint.
These miracles impressed the faithful no end, but it did nothing for the sceptics. But then there was a spate of cases of armless people growing new arms. The sceptics were challenged to explain it. They said it was far more likely that the genetic code in these people was being manipulated in some way—most probably by a virus—to grow new arms than that it was the work of a god. If lizards could grow new tails then there was nothing to stop humans from growing new arms.
A few days after these party tricks, there began the serious miracles. Trees were reported to be floating upside down. Waterfalls saw water floating skywards and upstream. Mountains began to hover in the air. Were the sceptics impressed? No. This was merely a consequence of gravity. There was obviously some anomaly in the gravitational field around parts of the earth. It was far easier to believe that how gravity worked hadn’t been fully understood than it would be to attribute these anomalous effects to a god.
The moon began to trace a zigzag pattern in the sky. The planet Venus ricocheted back and forth in the night sky from east to west and then north to south. The sceptics dismissed these phenomena as due to an incomplete understanding of gravity or due to computer-generated special effects. The American government had trillions of dollars at their disposal. If they could send space crafts to Mars then changing the night sky was a trifling matter.
Soon the miracles became even more bizarre. The gigantic figure in the sky put to rest once and for all any speculation about who he was. He said, “I am the Lord Jesus Christ. No man shall come to the father but by me. Whosoever believes in me shall not perish but have everlasting life.” This was repeated in 400 languages and 7000 dialects. If you missed it the first time round in a language you understood, you had to wait for a few days to hear it again.
The sceptics still said no-go. They claimed it made more sense to believe that the voice was a result of mass delusion or group hypnosis.
As punishment for their lack of faith, the giant Jesus sent bolts of lightning to strike several sceptics. Some sceptics said that the odds of being struck by lightning were infinitely smaller than the odds of the existence of a god. Other sceptics simply said that there was no need to involve gods and deities. This was obviously the act of hostile aliens that were technologically advanced. No doubt some of the things they were capable of doing was indistinguishable from magic.
Teenagers began to sport T-shirts that said, G-zus v luv u! and Jeezus rocks! The following text message went viral: 4 gd so luvd d wrld he gave begotn son—blieve in him live—don’t blieve die.
*** *** ***
And then on the thirtieth day after the appearance of the figure in the sky all hell broke loose. In the sky, right next to giant Jesus, a tear seemed to open up in the fabric of space. Warrior angels poured through. They numbered in the thousands. The looked like the classical angels of yore: they had white gowns, feathery wings, a halo above their head, and androgynous faces. In one hand they clasped a harp, in the other hand they clutched an array of weapons. The cherubim had bows and arrows. The seraphim held bazookas. The bog standard angels clutched a range of assault rifles, the AK47 being the most popular. Leading from the front were the arch angels: Michael, Gabriel and Raphael: the three celestial musketeers fighting in God’s army.
But who was the enemy? Why Lucifer, of course. The prince of darkness, the evening star, lord of the flies, the fallen one… he had many names but one agenda—to defeat the forces of Christ and secure victory for the Anti-Christ.
Armageddon had finally begun in earnest.
*** *** ***
Epilogue: Post Apocalypse
One would have thought that a world where angels and demons were running about hell-for-leather totting guns and screaming blue murder would have been enough to convince the sceptics of God’s existence.—Nothing doing. They insisted it was easier for them to believe that they were suffering from a mental delusion; that this was all in their heads; that none of it was real—it was either a waking dream or a schizophrenic hallucination.
The conspiracy theorists maintained that these angels were in actual fact Christians from the future who had decided to come back in time and stage an apocalypse so that all people from this time period would believe in the saviour Jesus Christ, thus ensuring that everyone in the future planet earth would be Christian and therefore allowing for the future Christians to come back to the past and stage the apocalypse.
The E.T.ists were convinced that these angels and demons were in fact two different species of aliens, using planet Earth as their celestial battleground.
The Rapturists had no doubt that this was the divine war prophesied in the book of Revelation. Indeed, they felt a bit sorry for the demons: their downfall had been predicted millennia ago. They were simply prolonging the inevitable. The Good Book clearly said the forces of good would prevail. But Lucifer and his legion battled gamely. They weren’t ones to succumb without a fight.
Pretty soon things got ugly. Earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions became the order of the day. The world was crawling with beasts—many of them with horns. There were numerous reports of dragons running around pell-mell breathing fire and whatnot. Trumpet blasts reverberated from morning to night. There were frequent sightings of four horsemen galloping about spreading confusion and anti-Jesus rhetoric. They wandered about in red, black, white, and pale horses.
*** *** ***
After the apocalypse and Armageddon, Jenna found herself in a strange sub-spatial, trans-temporal bubble zone where time didn’t matter and matter didn’t exist. She wasn’t sure if she was alive or dead. The keeper of the place was a dwarf named Cormut.
Jenna had very little memory of what had happened during the chaotic moments leading up to the End of Days. After making small talk in the strange black-bubble world she found herself in, Jenna decided to quiz Cormut about what had happened back on earth.
“What happened during the apocalypse, Cormut?” Jenna asked with curious eyes.
“I’m not sure. Different people have given different accounts… many have said they saw a white horse ridden by a king. There was also a red horse and a black horse. Some horses had black and white stripes, but I think those were zebras.”
“And what did these horses and riders do?”
“Some brought with them famine; others brought with them war and death and vengeance. Some of the riders sounded trumpets.”
“Trumpets?”
“They may have been oboes or cornets, but from all accounts they did have a trumpety sound.”
“Did you hear them, Cormut?”
“No, I didn’t. But there were many who did. The first trumpet was accompanied by hail and fire. The second and third trumpets destroyed the oceans and rivers. The next three trumpets darkened the sky, brought on a plague of locusts, and launched armies that killed millions of people.”
“You must have been terrified, Cormut.”
“The dark sky was the worst, I can tell you. And the locusts… they were right pests. But that wasn’t the end of that. People heard a seventh trumpet and that was the decider—that clinched it. From what I understand, a woman decked in stars and the sun and the moon came from the sky.”
“You mean, she wore a dress with patterns of the sun and moon?”
“No, no—the actual sun and moon.”
“That’s a bit odd, isn’t it, for a woman to be wearing the sun—or the moon for that matter.”
“Well, perhaps—but these things happen during apocalypses.”
“And she wore stars as well?”
“Yes, by all accounts.”
“Which ones?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean which stars did she wear?”
“Oh, I don’t know… Alpha Centauri, perhaps, or maybe Betelgeuse… But to get back to the sequence of events: after the arrival of the woman in celestial garbs the devil was expelled from his fiery abode and sent to earth in the guise of a dragon.”
“What sort of a dragon was it?”
“It was a mean dragon, from what I heard, serpentine and of the oriental variety: four legs, five claws, iridescent scales, and long whiskers.”
“Do you know, Cormut, all this sounds terribly exciting! I wish I had some memory of all this.”
“It may sound exciting, but it was a harrowing experience having to live through it. After the demonic dragon came the beast and all water turned to blood. A great darkness fell on the land, like a blanket, and there was a great war between the angels and the beasts. There was tremendous misery everywhere.”
“Was there wailing and gnashing of teeth?”
“Yes, much wailing and a lot of gnashing of teeth. But after that came a great earthquake and many people disappeared. This was a while ago. Things have quietened down since then.”
“Cormut, this is what puzzles me—where did the celestial woman and the dragon and the beast come from—where do they live?”
“That’s a question a lot of scientists asked when they first encountered these creatures. After much pondering and many days of deliberation they surmised that they probably inhabit a diaphragmatic region that exists in higher dimensions of space.”
“I’m sorry, Cormut, I probably missed that in school. What does it mean?”
“Well, space, they tell us, is like a diaphragm and according to Umbrella Theory, space folds in on itself—like an umbrella. The fundamental particles in nature are not really particles but popsicle sticks vibrating at different frequencies. The dragon and the beast are made of oscillating popsicle sticks that allow them to reside in the folds, nooks, and crannies of this umbrella-shaped Space.”
“And where is this Umbrella Space?”
“Why, right here, all around us. But you can never see it or touch it. However, it exists—just at higher dimensions—or so the scientists tell us. The last scientific accounts postulated that the Beast lives in the hundred and twenty third dimension which is a small curled up circle, nestling in the hinge of Umbrella space. There have been no updates from the scientific community since.”
“And God? Where does he live?” asked Jenna, filled with curiosity and wonder.
“Well, since the Apocalypse, scientists have been working round the clock to figure out where the Beast and his dragons came from and where they went at the end of Armageddon. An entirely new branch of Physics has been created—‘Diabolicology’ it’s called. The first peer reviewed publications in the latest Mephistophelian journals would seem to indicate that Diabolic Physicists have found some proof that Lucifer and his legion exist in the hundred and twenty third dimension.”
“The hundred and twenty third dimension? Where’s that? What is a dimension anyway?”
“Well, young lady, I’m no Diabolic Physicist, but I have made it a point to keep up with the latest research findings on the subject. A dimension is the magnitude of something in a particular direction. It is also one of many coordinates that determines position in space.”
“That makes no sense to me.”
“Imagine a point of zero dimension. This point occupies no real space. God exists in the zeroth dimension…”
“How do we know God exists in zeroth dimension?” Jenna interjected.
“Well, since God is infinite, and there can be infinite points in space, it follows logically that God exists in the zeroth dimension.”
“I guess that makes sense,” agreed Jenna. “And the angels? Is that where they live as well? And the Beast? Do Angels and Beasts live together?”
“Oh no no. Angels don’t live with the Beast. That would be impossible—they’d fight like cats and dogs. After the great eschatological battle between the angels and the Beast, scientists and sceptics alike were left to ponder the nature and origins of angels. After examining the DNA of feathers from an angel’s wing they discovered that angels are a hominid species as well: Homo angelis. That must have been obvious, considering they have arms and legs and a head and a tailless torso like us. But somewhere in their evolutionary history some 15 million years ago, they developed a mutation in their P chromosome that allowed them to reproduce asexually. Gender ceased to exist among the angels. This mutation had a concomitant effect in that it caused them to develop wings. Initially, these were just pinion buds—an exaptation more for threat display than flight. But gradually, with each generation and the passing of thousands of millennia these hominids developed the lustrous plumage they are presently endowed with.”
“And where did they go?”
“Well, being the first hominid species—indeed, the first primates—to be able to fly, caused them to change their lifestyle radically. Their new ecological niche forced them to resonate in a special way that was in tune with the divine harmony—much like whales and dolphins developed a new body structure once they took to the sea. The cetaceans developed sonar, the angels developed divine resonance. ”
“But why didn’t I see any angels before, I heard they were everywhere.”
“Oh, but Jenna, they are everywhere. This is what the scientists and sceptics ultimately discovered, and how embarrassed they were when they announced their findings. After years of denying the existence of angels they were in a state of shock when all those thousands of angels surged through the planet. After numerous experiments and peer-reviewed analysis, they discovered that angels reside at subatomic levels. Every atom in every object has angels—just very small—so small that we can’t see them with the naked eye or with our most powerful microscopes—that’s because they are smaller than Plank’s length. They can only be inferred though the most abstruse mathematics. And it turns out there’s more. The equations indicate that they come in four different flavours: angels, archangels, cherubim, and seraphim. They manifest themselves by interacting with one another. The last word from the scientific community was that they had discovered a fifth flavour of angels: guardian. But there have been no updates yet.”
Jenna was breathless after hearing this account. “I wish I could remember all these events. I sure did miss a lot—the end of the world, as it turns out.”
Author’s note:
There is something deliciously thrilling about tales of the end times. Eschatological stories abound in every culture—the common theme, invariably, is a colossal fight between the forces of good and evil. Consider the Norse story of the Ragnorak. During the end times, there will be a series of natural disasters and a battle in which many of the gods, Loki, Odin, Heimdall and the others will die. Earth will drown in a great flood and a new Earth with return fresh and fertile ready to be inhabited by two new humans. Writers of fiction and screenplays have picked up on this theme and have made merry. Every big-budget film has to have a big battle at the end. Bravery must triumph over cruelty; the hero must never die; and good must vanquish evil. The masses want this. It gives them closure.
