The End is Nigh

December was the month the world was supposed to end. On a Saturday, maybe. Truthfully, Rob couldn’t be sure of the day and especially not the date since one of the only ways to truly connect to ‘God’, according to Rob, is to ingest a few tabs of acid and starve yourself for two days prior. This might be a good technique to meet The Benevolent One but is not good for remembering things. So “maybe a Saturday in April” was the best he had to go off.

We first met Rob on the main street outside of Greggs. He had damp-looking hair, a dirty parka coat and a small Jack Russell called Checkers. Oh, and he wore one of those big, advertising signs that read ‘RELEESE your FEAR and MISERY. The WORLD is ENDING.’ People were walking past him as he yelled out that God was going to save us by ending the world and gifting us a slow, agonizing death that would allow us to have peace. Lovely, I thought.

I was walking with my older brother, Hoover, at the time. He’s called Hoover because we’d both been on the streets for years at this point and every time someone gave him some food they would say “Wow, you hoovered that right up, didn’t you?” as it disappeared in front of their eyes. I took to calling him it and he took to hitting me so hard my eyes went fuzzy but I still kept the name and eventually, when I grew bigger than him, he quit it. No one really notices me, so I don’t have a name, but then again I always try to make myself as small and unnoticeable as possible even though I’m now over six foot. Also, Hoover has boils on his face. Like, really, really big boils that pop out from his cheeks and neck like little mountains so he gets noticed whether he likes it or not and that kind of takes the attention away from me.

Hoover thought it would be funny to talk to the God Guy and kill some time until we could eat. There were people feeding the homeless a few streets away and we were hungry but Hoover had spotted guys with camera phones filming their charitable acts and he doesn’t like being recorded. I think on account of his boils. So we walked up to Rob and Hoover says, “How come we’re going to die painfully? Why can’t we die nicely? Like, after a hot chocolate and a ham sandwich?”

Rob turned to him and explained, “Because the more suffering you have in death, the more at peace you will be once you’re dead. And then you won’t come back as a ghost or nothing. The more you suffer in life helps too.” I wanted to ask how you could come back as a ghost if the world had already ended but thought better of it. Hoover wanted to talk though and we ended up with Rob for the next few hours as he told Hoover how the boils on his face were a manifestation of The Benevolent One’s love and that his suffering on Earth would bring him eternal peace. He said he has his own suffering too and it burns when he pee’s so he knows he’s loved and is going to be saved.

For the next three weeks we hung out with Rob as he shouted at passersby how the world was going to end soon and they might as well give up their money and jobs and embrace it. In fact, they should give up their money to him so that he could distribute it fairly and use it to buy gifts for The Impenetrable Spirit of Damnation. One night he invited us to a nearby park to watch him connect to The Spirit and he offered Hoover one of his acid tabs and asked him to join him, as a reward for being such a loyal believer. We hadn’t eaten in a couple of days so he said it’d be fine but he told me I couldn’t have one as he knew I didn’t believe yet. I said that was okay as I would just watch over them instead. I waited until the acid had fully hit before I took Checkers back to the main street to sit around. I liked Checkers, he was a cool dog and liked to burrow in to my neck when he got cold but most importantly people would always stop with food and drinks when I was with him. They didn’t seem to notice me either, just him which is how I liked it. I got back before Rob and Hoover sobered up enough to realise I’d been gone and they talked about how December was the month, for sure. We were all going to die in December.

The next few weeks Rob and Hoover both stood on the street with those big advertising signs and tried to convince people that everyone was going to die. I’d kind of adopted Checkers at this point so we sat not too far away and ate whatever food people gave us and watched. I was hoping Hoover would snap out of these ideas soon but every night him and Rob would go back to the park and do more acid and connect to God. I tried talking to him about it but he got mad and hit me, which he hadn’t done in years, so I smacked him back and broke his nose. He laughed and said it was another sign from The Purifying Force of Loving Fate that the date of his release from suffering was upon us and I knew then that I’d lost him.

All through December we would sit in the park on Saturdays and wait. Rob and Hoover would lie on the grass with their eyes closed waiting for their final agonizing suffering to begin. After the first few Saturdays came and went without the world ending I suggested they try and invoke the suffering by beating the shit out of each other. They thought this might be a good idea so they went at it and clubbed at one another until they were bloody and tired and lay panting on the grass while me and Checkers ate the leftovers of a hotdog from earlier. 

On the final Saturday in December they started a fight on Northumberland Street with a Rugby Team celebrating the festivities and got beat up pretty bad. Rob’s sign was smashed over his head and he kept being sick afterwards and seemed to lose all excitement for the suffering. The night passed and so did the rest of December and they moped around feeling sorry for themselves.

We continued camping out in the park though and one night, after the gash in his head had mostly healed, Rob turned to Hoover and said, “Maybe it was August? I actually think it was a Sunday in August,  you know.”