Apocalypse Next Tuesday

by Safier, David; Parnfors, Hilary;

  I jumped up from the table, explained to my Dad that my departure had nothing to do with his culinary skills – although his cooking did have the potential to trigger mass panic – ran out of the house and then along the path by the lake towards the vicarage. I ran like Harry in When Harry Met Sally. But unfortunately I was knackered after four hundred metres. And after seven hundred metres I was gasping for air. Shortly after that I started getting a stitch. How the devil did people in those romantic comedies always manage to run through half of New York? Sure, they did have a director to catapult them through the city in just a few scenes, so they probably only spent about forty seconds actually running. They also tended not to wear high heels, as I was right now. When they were, they took them off as they were running, without breaking their legs, and then carried on running through the metropolis without stepping on glass shards or in dog shit.

  But I wasn’t in a film. The path was full of dog shit, glass shards and condoms (the school kids called this path the ‘Way of Life’) so I couldn’t take my shoes off. Sometimes reality was pretty damn annoying.

  Plagued by a stitch, I dragged myself along the edge of the lake and up to the vicarage. When I stepped onto the gravelled path I saw Joshua coming out with his luggage. In spite of the pain, I rang up to him gasping, spluttering, sweating and hoping that he wouldn’t see the sweat patches under my arms.

  ‘Marie, you look like you’ve been wandering through the Sinai desert,’ he said, looking surprised to see me.

  I didn’t respond to that. I was just really happy that he hadn’t departed yet. But he didn’t look the slightest bit pleased to see me standing in front of him. Quite the contrary.

  ‘Please get out of my way,’ he said.

  ‘I…’

  ‘You don’t believe in God,’ he cut me off.

  ‘I never said that,’ I countered, trying to contextualise my statement. ‘I said that I don’t believe in God enough.’

  ‘Not enough is not enough,’ he replied sharply and walked past me. He left me standing. Just like that.

  No one was allowed to just leave me standing like that! Not even him!

  Angrily I called after him. ‘Don’t be such a sour puss! Let’s talk to each other like grownups.’

  Joshua turned to me and replied: ‘I have no idea how a cat can be sour?’

  ‘It’s a metaphor,’ I said impatiently.

  ‘And I’m being ironic,’ Joshua countered.

  Oh great. It would happen to be now that he finally understood what irony is!

  We glared at each other angrily, as only people with feelings for each other can do. We seemed to be miles away from reconciliation, let alone starting a family. Time for the Golden Rule. What would I have wanted in Joshua’s position? A rational explanation!

  ‘I believe in you,’ I began and adopted a gentler tone, ‘and I think that most of what you said in your Sermon on the Mount is pretty good…’

  He was now of a milder disposition. He was no longer frowning.

  ‘…even if I still haven’t fully understood that thing about pearls and swine…’

  ‘It means that…’ Joshua launched into an explanation.

  ‘It doesn’t bloody well matter!’ I interrupted him stroppily.

  He kept quiet and I got the impression that he didn’t care that much about the swine either.

  ‘Through you,’ I explained to him more calmly, ‘I have made peace with my mother, my father and even with the woman whom I called a vodka-whore…’

  ‘Vodka-whore?’

  ‘Also doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘And I almost think that I’ve become a bit more mature, more grownup. I’m sure no one would have bet a cent on that three days ago, me included… But there is one thing that I just can’t get my head around. That’s the whole God-punishment-heal thing… You see, I’m more in favour of anti-authoritarian upbringing.’

  ‘Anti-authoritarian upbringing?’ Joshua asked looking puzzled. ‘Marie, you sound like the Demoniac of Gadara.’

  I had no idea who this demoniac was, and assumed that it was best never to have met him. But Joshua was right, I had to be clearer, and speak in a way that he would understand.

  ‘So what does it say in the Bible?’ I asked. ‘Carry no fear in your hearts. Live without fear of punishment and the fires in hell. Do good unto those around you, because it is your free will, be it only for your own will, for your own lives will thus become richer and greater.’

  Joshua said nothing at first. Then he replied: ‘It… it doesn’t say that in the Bible.’

  ‘Well it should!’ I had finally made my point crystal-clear.

  This clearly made him think. So I added: ‘Well the way I see you, you don’t seem like the kind of man who could punish people!’

  He almost nodded.

  ‘You’re so different,’ I urged him, ‘a man who can teach… a man who can heal… a man who can inspire… a man…’

  ‘…who’s a damn good kisser,’ is what I wanted to say, but my voice failed me thinking about all these memories.

  ‘You’re right,’ he replied. ‘Fear should not govern man, but love.’

  When he said the word ‘love’, he gave it a fluid meaning. With ‘lo’ he seemed to be referring to charity and virtue. Once he’d reached ‘ve’ his mind had already started thinking about us.

  He looked at me like he had before our kiss. That wonderful kiss. I couldn’t stop myself… My lips drew closer to his again… And this time his drew closer as well… They came closer… And closer… Ever closer…

  Until we heard a neighing sound.

  This neighing was so loud and screeching that it sounded otherworldy. It sounded incredibly evil. It came from above, from the heavens. Our heads recoiled, our faces strained upward, and we caught sight of four horses that were breaking out of the skies, burning like flares. On these flaming steeds that were charging down to earth were beings that I was not able to identify from afar. But I knew instinctively that these horsemen were more terrifying than the animals.

  ‘The Horsemen of the Apocalypse,’ Joshua stated. He masked his surprise with a clear, strong voice.

  My heart shrunk into a small knot through fear.

  ‘I need to go there,’ Joshua declared.

  And I’m so scared I need to have a wee, I added in my thoughts.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Meanwhile…

  The first horseman to land in Malente’s town centre on his blazing steed was the man called War. Satan had accorded Sven with two supernatural powers, one of which was not burning his bum on the fiery horse – all the others had this too – and the other was to release all the suppressed hatred in people through his mere presence. Sven alone bore enough suppressed hatred within himself, particularly towards women. He had always been nice to them – to his mother, to the female doctors at the hospital where he worked as a nurse, to his fiancée Marie… And what had he got in return? His mother felt that the agony of labour had not been worth it, the doctors disparagingly referred to him as ‘Sister Sven’, and Marie had reached new levels on the open scale of humiliation. But now, thanks to Satan, Sven could finally give free rein to his hatred. Within seconds, Malente’s town centre was transformed into a no-go area. Innocent shoppers became beings who foamed at the mouth and wanted to split each other’s heads open. A mother hit her husband where it hurts because he had refused to have the snip, despite already fathering four children. A plump woman clawed her friend’s face because she couldn’t stand the fact that she could eat anything she liked without her figure suffering. Two Jehovah’s Witnesses forced their way into people’s houses at knifepoint, and the Turkish owner of Malente’s best kebab shop went after a neo-Nazi with his electric kebab knife. ‘That… that’s really not very tolerant of you…’ the skinhead stammered.

  The second horseman landed in the middle of this warzone. As a child, the gym-body vicar Dennis had been really fat. The other children had called him things like ‘Jabba the Hut’, ‘
Road Block’ or ‘Please don’t squash me’. When he got older, he started exercising like mad, and only ate carrots and drank energy drinks that tasted more artificial than a polyester shirt, the cuffs which he used to nibble on because of all his insecurities. In the end Dennis had become nice and slim, but he still felt this hunger, which he never satiated through fear of ending up looking like he did before. But now, as the horseman Famine, he suddenly saw that everyone felt a longing in their lives that they were unable to satiate. Some of them longed for love, others for money, sex or a full head of hair. Dennis was now able to bring all these personal insatiable desires that everyone suppressed within themselves to the surface. A man in his mid-fifties called his wife, whom he’d been married to for thirty-five years an old trout, and started pestering twenty-year-olds wearing boob tubes. Single women stole babies from buggies, a completely exhausted single mother did not object, the local Weight Watchers group ransacked sweet shops, and primary school children raided mobile phone shops, whilst several men stole from clothes stores to try on women’s clothes. One honest citizen, who had thus far suppressed his tendencies for pyromania, delighted in how flammable listed timber-framed buildings seemed to be.

  Above the inferno, the third Horseman of the Apocalypse was circling on a blazing steed. It was Pestilence. Whilst Sven and Dennis were revelling in their newfound powers, Kata was still battling with herself, but the temptation to give in to her dark side was growing stronger. As her horse circled above the hospital, she could no longer resist. She flew down and headed straight for the top floor. The flames caused the brickwork to burst asunder. The patients looked aghast and afraid, but Kata, who was now standing in the hospital hallway with her horse, only had eyes for the doctors, whose profession she so hated. Most of them had not cared the slightest about her suffering, so she took revenge with her new powers – she could bring out any illnesses that were lurking within a person’s body, and make them appear much sooner than they would have. The senior consultant got a combination of diabetes and Parkinson’s, so it would certainly not be a pleasure for her to inject her insulin. The emergency response physician began suffering from a compulsive eating disorder and also developed a wide spectrum of food allergies. And the young SHO received a double whammy of dementia and incontinence, so that every time he needed to go to the loo, he couldn’t remember where the toilet was.

  Any thoughts of tricking Satan were long gone – she was now intoxicated by her powers.

  The only horseman who retained a dignified distance and calmly sat on his steed like a vulture circling the skies of Malente was Death. He was still in the form of Marie, waiting for her to become the first casualty of the Day of Judgement.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Joshua rushed towards the town centre, from where black smoke was now rising. I could hardly keep up with him. Bloody shoes.

  Despite the three apocalyptic horsemen and the burning town centre, I could only think of one thing as I looked at Joshua’s determined striding – the kiss we missed. I was incredibly sad that this magical moment had been interrupted. But then again I did feel blissfully happy, because Joshua really had wanted to kiss me again, and then my heart sank, because I feared that it was all too late for us now that the Day of Judgement seemed to be jumping the gun.

  ‘What’s going on with Day of Judgement?’ I asked Joshua, gasping for air. ‘I thought we had until next Tuesday? And we’re actually in Malente right now, not Jerusalem.’

  ‘Never underestimate Satan’s power and guile,’ Joshua replied earnestly.

  ‘Erm…’ I’d suddenly had a worrying thought. ‘What actually happens if he wins the final battle?’

  ‘Then,’ Jesus declared, ‘evil will prevail for all of eternity.’

  I trembled as I pictured how murderers, sadists and investment bankers would take hold of the sceptre. They would torture, torment and exploit the good people, and as no one was allowed to die, this would carry on for all of eternity. The lake of fire was a spa in comparison.

  The town centre looked like one of those warzones you see on the news that makes you want to see what’s cooking on Come Dine With Me. Houses were on fire, the crowds were busy ransacking the shops, people ran through the streets covered in blood, and a Turk was chasing a skinhead with an electric carving knife – admittedly you didn’t see the latter all too often on the Ten O’Clock News. Before I had time to think about whether I had actually seen the ‘Skinhead gets sliced up’ story on the news, Jesus approached an injured man sitting in the gutter who had a cut under his eye, couldn’t see and was babbling on to himself that ‘She’d never told me that she thought I was no good in bed…’

  Joshua sat down next to him, and the man jumped with fear, as though he might get hit again. But Joshua said to him: ‘Fear thou not.’

  Then he spat on the ground, made a little paste with his saliva and rubbed it under the man’s eye. Then he drizzled a little water from a bottle he had in his bag on the spot, and washed the paste away; the cut had disappeared and the man could see again. But not only that. Joshua’s mere presence meant that the people in his vicinity forgot all about their anger and unbridled greed. The evil thoughts gave way to inner peace. The ransacking ceased, as did acts of violence. A woman gave a mother her buggy back, although she didn’t look that overjoyed about it. I was not that close to finding my own inner peace in this disturbing inferno, especially since it had just struck me that my parents had planned to go and eat an ice cream in the town with Gabriel, Svetlana and the children. I wanted to ask Joshua to help me find them, but he was just in the middle of saving a traffic warden from a group of drivers who had stuffed their parking tickets (all 200 of them) down her throat, thus realising a widespread motorists’ fantasy.

  It was clear to me that Joshua could not desist from helping these people who were in danger just to look for my family, who might have been all right. With a bit of luck they were still sitting at home digesting Dad’s indigestible food. So, with aching feet, I ran towards the ice cream parlour – past burning houses, men in women’s clothes and children beating up a mobile phone salesperson. The siren of an ambulance was sounding, and I was happy that there would be a doctor on site to help Joshua. But when I looked at the vehicle, I noticed that it was swerving all over the place… towards me! I was petrified with fear. The vehicle came ever closer, but I couldn’t move, even though my brain was screaming at my legs: ‘Oi, you stumpy little stems, move it!’ But my mortal fear had blocked the connection between my brain and the stumpy stems.

  ‘Scotty, are we going to make it?’

  ‘It’ll be tight.’

  ‘How tight.’

  ‘Tighter than Uhura’s skirt.’

  ‘That’s pretty damn tight!’

  I could already see the driver through the windscreen, his face red and bulging, frantically scratching all over as though plagued by a full-body allergy. Was there such a thing? And what had caused it? Perhaps the bananas that were being greedily consumed at lightning speed. Was I even visible through these swollen eyes? And if so, had the driver, who was very busy with all the eating, even noticed me? What terrible thing had caused this manic behaviour?

  In only a few seconds this vehicle would run me down. It was no real comfort to me that I’d at least have immediate access to medical assistance.

  Then I heard that terrible screeching of the blazing apocalyptic horses of hell above me. I looked up, saw the horsemen that were now gathering in the sky, and managed to catch a brief glimpse of their faces. For a moment, I thought I recognised them… no, surely not!

  Just the thought that my eyes had not deceived me sent such shockwaves running through my body that the connection between my brain and legs was restored. The latter now heard my brain’s command: ‘Run! Or else cellulite will be the least of your problems!’ My leg muscles tightened, preparing to bolt; the vehicle was only a few metres away now, and instead of breaking, the driver was chomping on a bag of hazelnuts, resulting in facial sw
elling. I ran, as far as I could, which was less than two metres. The vehicle now completely lost control and hit a lamppost, not more than a foot away from me.

  I got up, which was painful, as I had grazes on my legs. As soon as I’d recovered from my initial shock, I looked into the vehicle. The driver was unscathed, at least by the accident. Other than that, the allergic boils and the manic scratching meant that not even the Elephant Man would have wanted to be seen in public with him.

  I hoped that Joshua would reach the driver soon, and hobbled off towards the ice cream parlour. I had to know whether my family – and yes, Svetlana and her daughter now somehow belonged to it – were in danger. I avoided a woman who was stamping on her husband’s private parts yelling: ‘You’ll be sterile in a minute!’

  I was pleased that the most aggressive people didn’t seem to be interested in me – they were far too busy with their own battles. It was a minor miracle that no one had died yet, and probably only a matter of time. Then a man in his mid-fifties stood right in front of me and said: ‘I’m most keen on twenty-year-olds…’

  ‘Well then you’re quite obviously too late with me,’ I answered, trying to get past him. But he blocked my way.

  ‘…but I can’t ensnare those.’

  ‘Ensnare?’

  ‘But you’re pretty pert too,’ he ascertained and drool began flowing out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Nothing like you then,’ I replied, making a renewed attempt to get past him. But again he blocked my path.

  ‘I like the chubby ones too,’ he explained and took hold of me. I didn’t know what made me more angry – this guy putting his hands on me or that he’d called me ‘chubby’.