Rapture

Rapture – Blondie

‘Beware! Never receive the mark of the Beast! The number will be 666! If you receive it on your right hand or forehead, you will go to hell! Christ is coming! The Rapture is nigh!’ The man does not pause to breathe between exclamations. The end is so nigh that there is no time for any respiratory break, not even for dramatic effect. The man is holding a thumbed bible up to the false light illuminating the subway passage below 42nd Street, but his eyes stay transfixed to a point somewhere at the end of the long hallway, as if he expects god to come running around the corner any minute, to catch the last train home.
He knows what his bible says – and he knows what it means. Anyone who is not a true christian will be missing out on a one way ticket to heaven when Rapture comes; they will, instead, be forced to endure unspeakable sufferings under dictatorship of the Beast, who will dominate the earth in a terrifying reign of digital consumerism.
His sidekick, a woman with a mop of rather despondent hair, hands me a brochures as I pass, explaining it all in a step-by-step fashion: when Rapture is coming, how to recognize the signs, and – not irrelevant – what to do when it comes around and you are found wanting in the religious department (‘Suggestion # 1: do not panic; that is absolutely useless now.’[ ...] ‘Suggestion # 4: pray like you have never prayed before in your life.’). I for one am glad I got one. You never know!

The end of the world as we know it does not hold any secrets for the man and woman, and they must spread the word. After all, even habitual sinners deserve a shot at salvation, or at least an honest heads up. Now, what better place to find the lord’s lost causes than directly under Times Square, the decaying core of modern day Sodom and Gomorrah? Lines A, C and E Uptown to your right; lines 1, 2 and 3 Downtown to your left; every fork a gaping mouth to the pits of hell. The underground umbilical cord connecting Times Square and Grand Central turns and twists and throbs with prodigal souls. A highly maintained lady rapidly click-clacks by. ‘God’s wrath shall be upon all who take the mark of the Beast! The signs of the return of Jesus Christ our lord the savior are unmistakable!’ The lady sucks on her cheeks and curls her lips – a typical frown for the botoxed – in displeasure with such an exhibit of poor taste, and speeds up even more, her heels tapping a licentious dance on the hallway tiles.

Rapture-announcers in the US don’t have to rely on multi-interpretable bible predictions or random guesswork anymore; they have got a website, RaptureReady.com, ‘to standardize those components to eliminate the wide variance that currently exists with prophecy reporting’. Forget about christian Wikipedia and its creationist near-science: key feature of the Rapture site is a Rapture Index: the irrefutable, calculated probability, at any given time, for the prophesized Rapture to occur. The Index is based on a set of categories (Unemployment, False Prophets, Iran and Russia, Floods, and Liberalism, to name a few), each with their own weight to them, that add up to a number. That number is the Index, an accurate indication of prophetic activity, to be interpreted thus, according to the ‘prophetic speedometer’:
‘- Rapture Index of 100 and Below: Slow prophetic activity
- Rapture Index of 100 to 130: Moderate prophetic activity
- Rapture Index of 130 to 160: Heavy prophetic activity
- Rapture Index above 160: Fasten your seat belts.’

The Index at the time of writing, early September 2009: 163. Don’t say they didn’t warn you.

God Only knows

God Only Knows – The Beach Boys

On the corner of the street, next to the subway entrance of 96th Street and Broadway, a man holding a bible is shouting at his fellow men, a mound of brochures neatly stacked on the sidewalk. I pass him almost every day when I take the train. The man dictates and quotes unwearyingly – even on an ominously overcast August afternoon like this one. ‘For six days, work is to be done! But the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest! Holy to the LORD! Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death!’ The man’s face flinches involuntarily. It is Sunday. Thank god he does not get any reimbursement for the warnings he is heeding to passers-by.
No need to repeat that god is almighty or that Jesus loves you; people know all that by now. What they don’t know, is that god can be mighty pissed off. And that it’s best to be on his good side when he gets angry. The lord is not squeamish when it comes to acting out his wrath, the man on the corner knows. ‘Hear Lucas 19:26-28! I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given! But as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away! But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and kill them in front of me!’

God is great in the US. Although numbers are dwindling slowly, 87% of the population still actively professes their belief in a higher power – or several. In New York City, catholics and protestants make for a respective 40 and 30% of that number (occupying over 200 churches); 8.5% is jewish (with a solid 50 synagogues), 3.5% is muslim (saying praise in a surprising 100+ mosques); 1% states to be buddhist (and does so in no less than 20 buddhist temples), and 13% (a bit poorly, in their own homes) either believes that god does not exist, or does not believe that god exists – not as a man with a beard, anyway. ‘That there’s something out there’ does not constitute as an official religion – at least, not that I know of. Among the 4% that is left non-specified are, at any case, enough people to fill 15 jehovah’s witness churches and a couple of hindu temples. I wonder where the man on the corner has found his niche.

It starts to rain, a genuine summer downpour. Within seconds, the man’s shoes are as saturated as his nylon suit. He does not mind. After all, Noah wasn’t intimidated by a little drizzle, now, was he? Within minutes, water is gushing along the sidewalks and the hopelessly under-equipped city sewers; over the steps and down the subway it goes. By the end of the day, water will be seeping through the cement construction and onto the heads of the men and women on the platforms below. For now, the man’s brochures soak together; next thing, they are swooped up by the rivulet and carried away, doomsday newsprint boats, to the sewers of West End Avenue. The man watches them go with a hint of nostalgia. He's not afraid of any upcoming floods. Bring it on, judgement day! There will be a seat saved for him on the boat.