SLOUCHING TOWARD APOCALYPSE - A VISION

Slouching Toward Apocalypse

The other day, Marvin left his job at the New York Stock Exchange totally exhausted from the day’s frantic drops in markets across the board. He had never seen such before, although he was aware of course of 1929, nearly a century ago. He walked along and approached the famed, Raging Bull of Wall street-the shiny bronze bull that symbolized the best of market conditions in his opinion. He paused a moment, staring up into its frozen, timeless eyes and then headed down the street to catch his subway home.

Later, he had his usual light dinner, a few cocktails and then plunged into his bed ready to resume the frantic pace again the next day with hope that the market would somehow rebound as it usually did. As his head hit the pillow this time, however, he was vaguely aware of having drank a bit more than he was accustomed to having since he had wished to forget the enormous losses he had witnessed. The image of the big bull statue returned seeming alive and snorting. There it was, pawing and scuffing its hooves, glaring at him, daring him to challenge its monstrous bulk as it swung its massive head and very sharp horns from side to side. In dreamy slow motion, it seemed to Marvin as he watched helpless, the creature impossibly charged forward and scooped Marvin onto its back and leaped away with Marvin clinging on to the longhorns like handlebars on a wild cycle ride through a panoramic dreamscape which opened before him like a 3D movie. He became aware of some gigantic voice booming like on a loudspeaker from the clouds or perhaps it was in his head as he rode along clutching the horns like a lunatic on a wild bar ride.

“A sense of entry provides the enchanted traveler with an exalted chance to stop and gawk at unforeseen miracles that pop like tarts from a toaster in the Morning of Tenderness after a Harrowing Night. Burnt and sweet pick-me-ups “ridicule” the headway gained as lunacy and madmen plagiarize the masses in the fray. Behold and see, for you are dim and yet you shall see.”

“Indemnity rises like dough-conditioned bread baked by the sweat of hot-air breathing Hard-Knockers banging down the doors to freedom while billowing young whippersnappers flinch at the falsely sweetened smell that lures them to risk everything because their bellies aren't full.”

“Idiots shall beat drums of superstition while shouting incognito remembrances, urging all to climb into sinkholes without a rope or ladder. Flies greedily rub front paws in anticipation of the apocalypse and rot that will wreak to the high heavens the stench of civilized excrement that once poured from forthright society.” Marvin clung on for dear life as the voice rang loud in his head and the raging bull charged through the impossible landscape.

“Elusive fairies fawn excitement at the passing of them who had stomped both the high ground and low into pulverized battlegrounds. Eager tongues of the uninformed will lap slush doled out by overactive imagination of those with slush-funds and a penchant for control of reality. Sponsorship of freedom falls into the tempest hands of the Free-Dumb now roaming the putrid plains that once waved biliously toward Purple Mountains Majesty. The roaring cries of the forlorn shall recede into apathy. Salute Hats, Habits and Helmets of the Mystic Marchers who profess to bear no evil but who stand ready to torch and set fire to reality as they see it. Salute and perish.” As the bull reared up against what appeared to be a wall and veered suddenly to the Far Left, Marvin nearly fell off and only kept himself from catapulting over the horns by gripping the bull’s neck with his legs so hard it bruised. The voice blared on seeming to emanate from everywhere.

“Stretch a banner of Fidelity across the heads of the gaping-mouthed crowds of Dazed Onlookers caught in bizarre tension of suspended disbelief as the sky parts with a barely audible snap. Ears shall hear Stardust falling as Horses swish their Tails and Rabbits rush onto empty roads, unafraid of being smashed. All signals and directing signs are meaningless. All the Pigs have become Pork no longer feared and instead, are eaten by the trodden and once forlorn or like memorials smashed into oblivion in joyous glee, none are touched with remorse.” At this, the impossible bull came to a sudden stop as though to throw off the clinging weight on its head, yet Marvin clamped even harder as the bull snorted and moved off among the towering buildings Marvin recognized as the city to which he faithfully commuted each day, however, the buildings seemed to grow smaller as though he himself, astride the bull in his strange vision grew to impossibly huge proportion dwarfing the wavering buildings which seemed to quaver and shake against the booming sound of the enormous voice.

“Ignorant Mojo-Maniacs shall move mountains of millionaires into asylums by spending nothing for Nothing--all underwritten by Everything. All of it's gone when there's nothing for the Plug in the Sockets of Connection, and Amounts shall vanish into void.”

“Dreams shall festoon the miracles that "just can't be" with Party Balloons with leering faces; sharp Teeth will gnash and rip the flesh of Ideas to confetti and spit out Dribble for the fledgling Decanters of Wisdom who shall attempt to follow though they shall wallow in the mire left by their elders who chew their cud with indifference.” Marvin looked ahead and realized the bull had charged out into a pastoral setting eerily populated with strange creatures and glaring-eyed farmers leering from the fencerows, brandishing strange implements that began to look like grim reaper slash-bars as the commanding rant continued to blare its strange message.

“All around, Horses shall clomp to rigors of Shielded-Eye Protectionism, unable to see the Hay held out to them by anxiety-stricken World-Travelers guilty for having marched off to battle without a saddle. Cows shall come home to friendly, smiling Butchers who claim their integrity in matching their prowess against Morons who mingle in the shade of uncertainty. The Cows do congregate in unreasonable anguish, awaiting milking but shall only plod forth to the butcher. Bells about necks clang warnings as, one by one, they shall fall mooing for their Salt.”

“Touting whistles in factories of fomenting Rebellion shall shriek last calls for industrialized multitudes left with nothing to do. Quirks of fate shall reside in their places, fleshless and fresh from factories of fetish and future. Shouting matches recede into Quagmires of Reciprocal Thinking that bog and swallow the slow-witted Winners of the End. Tides shall then ebb from Billion-dollar beaches of prosperous Philanderers as Bigots scour the Sands of Time for Pebbles to place in jars to remind them of their accumulated insanity. The Shouting is just beginning...Go now, for you have been shown for you art merely a servant of the end and you are wont to awaken if you can only see where you have been.”

The bull began charging again straight toward a looming fence and just before impact, the giant bull dug in its hooves and bent its head low and bucked, sending Marvin, whose grip had weakened, sailing out over the fence and Marvin had the sensation of tumbling.

Marvin awoke, lying on the floor beside his bed in a heap all bunched up in the covers which lay about him in a pile. He was drenched and trembled as he lay there heaving and panting. The dream had seemed so real. He glanced at the clock on his nightside table. It showed nearly four AM, only a bit over half hour from his normal wake time. He gulped and swallowed the lump in his throat but then gagged as he realized it was bile and launched himself to the nearby bathroom where he vomited the stench of his vision into the toilet.

He cleansed and reviewed his dream, tossing it up as madness caused by the previous day’s plunge in the world-wide markets and went about his morning routine as usual, though still haunted by the stark imagery and the booming commands and oratory he had experienced in his nightmare.

Later, as he shuffled among the hundreds of sidewalk pedestrians on their way to various destinations, he again came to the famed bull. This time, he glared back at it, and spoke out loud to it.

“You gave me ride, all right, but I’m gonna ride this plunge all the way back to the top. You’ll see. Thanks for the vision. I know what I am going to buy up now!” With that, he spat on the bull’s tarnished forepaws and strode into work, more confident than ever.