The sun slowly set over the Pacific
Ocean, causing the billowing clouds to change from white to pink and
purple hues. A crowd of approximately eighty people watched a
solitary figure doing some form of exercise on the beach of San
Juanico, Mexico. Half of the crowd was reporters from various TV
stations, magazines and newspapers, while the other half were
followers of the man.
The man, stretching slowly in fluid
movements, was tall, lean and well-tanned. Even his bald head was
well-tanned instead of sunburned as one might expect from a former
governor of Minnesota visiting a tropical region. He wore a white
outfit that seemed somewhere between a karate uniform, a regular
button-up shirt and slacks, and pair of satin pajamas. The outfit
appeared more appropriate for the Playboy mansion than a Mexican
beach.
Marc Rebstock, a writer for High
Times, watched the man with amusement. “Are you sure this is the
right guy? He looks like Wayne Dyer?”
Hal West, a reporter for the Chicago
Sun-Times, glanced over at his colleague’s bloodshot eyes. “The
Erroneous Zones
guy? I guess he does at that.”
“This Mayan Messiah is Jose
Valencia, the former wrestler turned governor of Minnesota, right?”
Restock squinted through his sunglasses to get a better look at the
speaker. “He used to have long blonde hair, a biker moustache and
wear a feathered boa. I loved to watch him wrestle. He was nicknamed
the Torso and the Intellect. Watching wrestling and eating pot
brownies and Taco Bell, that’s the best, man.”
“I’ll have to take your word on
that,” Hal said. “But he shaved his head bald and got rid of the
‘stache a long time ago. Since before he became governor.”
“He’s so tan. He’s looks like
a really tan Tai Chi instructor. Too weird.”
“He’s been holed up here in
Mexico for several years now. He left the U.S. over ‘censorship
issues’ and vowed never to return. Nobody had heard anything from
him until last week, and now…look…”
Marc gazed around at the dozens of
groupies following Jose Valencia, recently dubbed the Mayan Messiah
by the media. “Far out. What’s he doing? Yoga?”
“Tai Chi, I think.”
“Isn’t that a drink?”
Hal pondered that for a moment, and
then chuckled. “No, that’s chai tea.”
“Whatever…tai chi, chai tea…same
thing,” Rebstock said. “When is he going to start talking? My
buzz is starting to wear off and I’m starving. I want to get back
to the hotel, light up again and grab some fish tacos from that taco
stand in front of the building.”
“Right,” Hal said. “Hey,
listen up. I think he’s starting.”
The Mayan Messiah did a final bow to
the setting sun, slipped on his sandals and turned to the crowd.
“Walk with me,” came Valencia’s voice echoing around the crowd.
Hal guessed several of the groupies must have had speakers attached
to their backs and Valencia was evidently wired for sound.
The crowd moved along the shoreline
as they all listened intently to their prophet.
“Dear friends, the end of
civilization as we know it is coming,” Valencia said in strangely
soothing tones. In his wrestling days, Valencia’s voice was loud
and raspy and about as smooth as a raccoon being shook to death by a
Rottweiler. “Sooner than you think. Before the end of the year,
the earth shall be devastated. The Mayan calendar foretells the end
of this age on December 21, 2012 or 12/21/12. That date, which is
also the winter solstice, is the end of the thirteenth baktun of the
Mayan calendar. A baktun is roughly a 400-year period. The Mayan
calendar abruptly ends at the end of the 13th
baktun…forever.”
A few people in the crowd, all
reporters, scoffed and muttered at the evidence but were quickly
silenced by the scathing looks of the Mayan Messiah’s supporters.
“It gets worse. Has anyone heard
of the Timewave theory?” A score of hands, all followers, in the
crowd go up.
“The Timewave theory was first
hypothesized by Terrence McKenna in the 1970’s. It was originally
called Timewave Zero. It uses a sophisticated combination of
mathematics and numerology to show waves
of climactic events throughout history, such as the Inquisition and
World War II, and attempts to predict future events along the wave.
The theory was further modified by John Sheliak to use computer
technology and is now commonly referred to as Timewave One. By all
calculations of Timewave One, which have been run thousands of times,
the wave abruptly stops on the same date as the Mayan calendar on
December 21, 2012.”
“What if Sheliak was insane or
just a crappy programmer?” Greg Watson of Skeptic magazine asked.
“Garbage in, garbage out, right?”
“Indeed,” Valencia countered
smoothly. “One more bit of evidence. December 21, 2012 is also the
date of a galactic event. Known as the Galactic Alignment, it is when
the solstice sun lines up with the center of our galaxy, the Milky
Way. This happens only once every 26,000 years.”
“That happened 26,000 years ago,
didn’t it? And the Earth is still here,” Watson retorted.
“Ah yes, true enough, my cynical
friend,” the Mayan Messiah said peacefully. “If my previous
examples aren’t proof enough that the end of the world is coming,
consider this: The Cleveland Browns
and the Detroit Lions are
playing in the Super Bowl in just a couple of days from now. As any
football fan knows, it would be easier for my mother to pile drive
Andre the Giant than get the Browns and the Lions in the Super Bowl
in the same year. If that doesn’t mean the end of the world, I
don’t know what does.”
Watson nodded in acquiescence and
sunk back into the crowd.
“Dear friends, the end of days
will not happen in Armageddon as prophesized in Revelation, but
around the entire world in the conflagration I call Mayageddon,”
the Mayan Messiah intoned hypnotically at the press conference. “Are
there any questions?”
“So, Mayan Messiah, how complete
will the destruction of this Mayageddon be?” Hal asked. “Will
everybody die?”
“No, not everyone. Approximately
93% will perish. Next question?”
“Yo, have you ever seen
Caddyshack?” Marc Rebstock asked.
“Of course, best seen while on
shrooms and purple hair ganja,” the Mayan Messiah replied with a
smile.
“Righteous, dude,” Rebstock
said.
“You know it, brother. By the way,
it might be a good idea to catch a gnarly buzz starting December
20th…”
Excerpt from the novel, Mayageddon 2012 by Ken Baumbach
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