But I find out that I am not the only person trying to devise a way of escape. Since it is now clear that the end is imminent, many people begin to make their different survival plans. And there are many such plans—from the commonplace to the bizarre.
People, for instance, are digging survival trenches. Others begin to think of living under the sea, or in the bellies of fishes, or land creatures—the kind of things that happen only in fairy tales and in dreams. Some even go a step further by boasting that they would jump into the bag of the winds and disappear from the Earth when Inferno comes around. Yet others talk of flying on the backs of long-distance champion birds like the arctic tern or the blackpoll warbler, and end up in either the North Pole or the South Pole (that is if the long arm of Inferno doesn’t get there).
The preparations for the apocalypse are heightened after the winged-man in white comes to tell the kings that man cannot make a better Earth. They had earlier tried, but failed to locate The Golden City, in the hope of escaping to live there. The kings are therefore certain that it is a fait accompli that the world would end, and that there is nothing that they can do about it.
The angry people start to think of hanging the kings. Because it was their hard-heartedness and unbending resolve to wipe out Inferno that is now leading to the world’s end. But they forget that some of them had goaded their kings to war and defied the words of the winged-man in white. They did not hang the kings, however, since everybody is going to die, anyway.
The people, therefore, fall to extensive feasting—a Last Supper—like the foolish man did during the solar eclipse.
Suddenly, I see in my dream that the world is ending.
First, Inferno torches the glass headquarters of the Talking Nations Organization. Come and see dead and dying diplomats. Come and behold the so-called house of peace turn Sodom and Gomorrah. This destroyer, Inferno, knows where and how to start a fight. Because the attack confuses the people even the more.
Next, Inferno crashes the world’s computer network—throwing the whole communication systems into disarray and the earth into pitch-darkness. Airplanes could not fly and ships refuse to sail. In the midst of the confusion, I begin to imagine what next would come out from this Pandora’s Box.
Then I see that people die after drinking public water because the water sources are poisoned. The survivors dig around their houses to get drinking water, while some suck water from stems and leaves of trees.
Before long, Inferno poisons plants and animals, and these begin to die. People, afraid to eat, die of starvation in great numbers. But a number of vegetarians begin to compete with the surviving animals for fruits and green leaves.
Then people start to cough and die of lung infection caused by a powdery substance called Inferno powder, which Inferno put in their mails. As scientists begin deploying equipment to check this scare, the unexpected comes. Planes fly and bathe city and country dwellers with tons of Inferno powder. And there is a medical crisis!
People run into caves and subways to survive the attack. But Inferno is cleverer, for he bombs the subways and caves with a choking gas known as Inferno gas. And those who didn’t die run out again.
Then ingenious Inferno releases an incurable disease called Inferno plague. The epidemic is so infectious that people get sick merely by looking at the victims. Infected ones die within minutes.
As I begin to reflect on these terrible happenings and to wonder whether Inferno and the seven devils have exhausted their bags of tricks, the winged-man in white comes to say that things will get even worse. He says that it is only God—and not mortal man—that would bring peace to the world and turn the earth into that much-desired Paradise.
It is at that time, he says, that the words at the Isaiah Wall, which used to be at the headquarters of the Talking Nations Organization, will be fully fulfilled. Because there will be no Inferno or the seven devils to cause any fear.
Then the endgame. Inferno ships loaded with containers begin to arrive from Inferno ports across the oceans. Then Inferno opens the containers and releases Inferno bombs. And the Earth starts to burn. Hear the cries of the dying! Feel their pains! There is no escape for the great and the small!
People are now running and jumping into the only safe place—the sea. And regardless of the fact that those who jump in either drown or are eaten by sea monsters, more persons head toward the sea, and dive in.
I head for the sea, too, and reaching the cliff, I jump. But before I drop into the waiting hands of hungry sharks and whales, I awake and open my eyes.
Thank God, it was a dream…
SOME OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Hunt for the Tree of Life: The Methuselah Poem
America and China are in a superpower race in quest of the tree of life in Eden to develop a magic bullet and banish death forever.