The Rapture Next Time
Jenny Diski
Were you looking forward to it? Just a little bit? In spite of yourself? Well, perhaps it's just me, but there's something about finality. All that goes-round-comes-round gets wearing after a few decades. My sense of potential completion depended, of course, on not being one of the Elect. Imagine. There it is, the End of Days and damn me if it's not all starting again - perfect, obviously, but still, starting again. I had no fear though, being a firm unbeliever. So six o'clock Saturday comes and goes, and shows every sign of coming again next Saturday. I'm not alone in my disappointment. Jeff Hopkins put a lighted sign on top of his car and drove back and forth from Long Island to New York to inform the world of the coming Rapture. He, even more than me, is gutted:
"I've been mocked and scoffed and cursed at and I've been through a lot with this lighted sign on top of my car," he told Associated Press. "I was doing what I've been instructed to do through the Bible, but now I've been stymied. It's like getting slapped in the face."
Really, you can't trust anyone, not Harold Camping and not God. Actually, Camping has apologised. It was he, not God, who did the maths wrong. He's really sorry to have disappointed not just me, but all those people who gave away their life savings. Still never mind:
"We just had a great recession. There's lots of people who lost their jobs, lots of people who lost their houses... and somehow they all survived," he said."We're not in the business of giving any financial advice. We're in the business of telling people maybe there is someone you can talk to, and that's God."
If you're on skid row as a result of Mr Camping's rubbish arithmetic, hang on: he's rescheduled. October 21st, and that's definite. Or to make absolutely sure, you can hold your breath.
Comments
Of course, Mr Camping might have meant timezone by timezone. That wouldn't have been quite as spectacular but still interesting.