The Mayan Messiah Explains the End of the World 12/21/12
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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