Happy Mayan Apocalypse Day!

To be honest, there was a part of me that did not think that the alarm clock was going to go off this morning, that the paranoid might have been right and the Mayan apocalypse had somehow come to fruition while I was sleeping.  The night proved rather uneventful though, which in hindsight made me seem kind of foolish for going to bed so heavily armed.  On the other hand, had I fallen asleep under a lesser degree of preparedness I likely would not have found myself in a position to appropriately respond to a clock radio blaring John Denver music into an otherwise peaceful bedroom at 4:30 in the morning.  There are undoubtedly some people that may think that letting loose four rounds from a .357 magnum to force a premature ending to “Rocky Mountain High” may be a bit of overkill, but as my surprised wife, 5 terrified kids and two suddenly incontinent dogs discovered, I was not one of those people.

Things got moving pretty quickly after that.  As my wife insisted on trying to have a “heart-to-heart” regarding me going on some sort of medication, I got through my shower and breakfast in record time so that I could start talking with sane people at the office as opposed to having to converse with hysterical spouses at home.  I tried to make her realize that problems were never solved through conversation at 5am, and she should know that considering how many ill-fated roadside discussions I have had with law enforcement authorities at that ungodly hour, but despite the evidence she kept chattering away anyway until I finally slipped out of the kitchen door and into the garage.

I hit the button on the wall to raise the garage door and while it was climbing, poked my head into the refrigerator to fish out a Mountain Dew for a solid caffeine fix to get myself to work. When I emerged from the fridge, I was startled to find the garage door opened and standing in front of it, a form standing at least 8 feet tall.  It was a truly horrific creature, with a torso shaped vaguely like an upside down triangle, whose head and body were one, with no neck separating the two.  It had long, sinewy arms that hung off of the top corners of its body and stretched all of the eight feet it took for them to reach the ground.  Its legs were much shorter, but no thicker, but quite bowlegged suggested that this beast must have ridden one fat horse on its way to my driveway.  This was a fur bearing beast, bearing a deep red coat with yellow tiger stripes.  It had three bright green reptilian eyes lined up across the top of its forehead between its two shoulders, the nose of a swine and a wide mouth from which two enormous fangs protruded out of its lower jaw.  I stared at it for a little while, trying to figure out if this monster was yet another side effect of the Chantix I used to quit smoking a few years before or the result of some other substances I had ingested during my youthful forays into street pharmaceuticals.  Having been years since I had to confront a hallucination of that caliber, I was not entirely sure what to do, so I just gave him a nod and acknowledged it with a “ ‘sup.”

The creature nodded back to me, grinned and returned the greeting, but with a bit more enthusiasm.  “‘SUP!”  It then produced a blade shaped like a gigantic Gurkha knife and charged, loosing a deafening roar as it lunged to take my head off.

Though by no means known for my cat-like reflexes, particularly before six am, I ducked just in time for the blade to miss the top of my crown and pass effortlessly through my refrigerator as if it were a hot knife through a stick of butter.  The appliance seemingly exploded into a foamy mist of vaporized PBR and I found myself marveling at the power of what I had believed to be a psychotropically inspired figment of my overactive imagination.  Back in my gloriously misspent youth, when I was being attacked by one of my hallucinations, I would drop my defenses and allow whatever apparition was bothering me to have its way with me.  Once my body saw that my visions were harmless, they would generally go away.  This time however, I just could not get my body to play along.  As the demon before me swung, stabbed and parried his weapon, my body was involuntarily ducking, weaving and leaping out of the way of the cutting edge.

At one point, the demon thrust his blade at my chest, but I turned out of the way just in time for it to miss me and get itself stuck into the wall of my garage.  I then grabbed an axe off a nearby shelf and buried it deep within the head of creature before me.  The beast instantly split nearly in two and fell backwards, unleashing a swarm of fluorescent colored centipedes that rushed out of the demon’s deflating corpse, down my driveway, into the street and down the nearest manhole cover into the sewers below.  I was now convinced that someone had spiked my drink last night with some sort of hallucinogenic substance and I made a pact that by the end of the day I was going to find out what it was, mainly because I REALLY wanted to score some more of that stuff before New Year’s Eve.

While on my way to my car in the driveway, I took a quick look around the neighborhood and had to stop and marvel at the chaos erupting around me.  The widowed Mrs. Henderson sped past my house screaming bloody murder, her wheelchair being pulled chariot style down the street harnessed to a half dozen half-man, half horse centaurs who were trotting along at an easy 60 miles an hour.  This made me smile as at least three times a week I get caught behind that harpy in the Honda Civic she has owned for 12 years without her ever managing to figure out where the accelerator was located.  There was a small army of goblins tearing up the perfectly manicured lawn of the Roberts house which also lifted my spirits as I would now have a good reason to complain to the neighborhood association about THEIR landscaping for a change.  There were winged trolls relieving themselves in the Mayfields’ swimming pool and I spotted a trio of gargoyles trying to mate with Tomlinson’s Great Dane.  Apparently, I was on some REAL good stuff.

For the most part, the monsters ignored me until I pulled out of my driveway and started making my way down the street.  Then every twisted creature within a two block radius came rushing at me.  I decided that for the most part, I would just drive right through them.  I seriously doubted that any of those things were really there and if by some chance they were actually running amok throughout the subdivision, I am sure that my neighbors would greatly appreciate the fact that I was running them over.

The chaos did not end once I was out of the neighborhood.  Once onto the main road, I spotted a fire-breathing dragon take out a convoy of tanker trucks in a spectacular fireball that left me with a sudden craving for marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers.  I then passed a Satanic choir of lesser demons caroling classic Iron Maiden tunes.  I also spotted a fluorescent orange python in a corn field the size of a passenger train, a flock of flying piranhas tearing apart an escaped hippopotamus and a swarm of razor-toothed tree frogs attacking stray dogs.  Normal, vehicular traffic was surprising light.  It was nearly ten minutes before I spotted a police car roaring at me with lights and sirens ablaze.  It cut in front of me, forcing me to stop and then pulled up beside me while a frantic police officer rolled down his window and leaned half of his body out of it to scream at me. 

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!” the officer bellowed.  “ARE YOU INSANE!?!?!  YOU NEED TO GET OFF OF THE ROAD AND GO…”  He was cut off when a passing pterodactyl swooped down and plucked him out of the vehicle to carry him off for an early morning snack.  This proved too much for his partner in the passenger seat to bear, who proceeded to melt down, throwing his hands to his cheeks while hysterically screaming, “RUUUUUUNNNNN!   FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE!!!  GET OUT OF HERE!!  RU…”  He was silenced when an immense elephant-like leg came down upon the patrol car, smashing it flat against the pavement.  The beast that huge leg belonged to was so gargantuan that I could not even begin to make out what it was as it stepped over me.  Once it passed though, I noticed an ancient Native American shaman standing on the road’s opposite shoulder, smiling warmly and waving at me.

I waved back.  “You’re Mayan aren’t you?” I asked suddenly doubting my hallucinogenic theory.

The Indian gave me a thumbs up. 

“And this is the end of the world?”

The shaman answered me in an ancient Mayan dialect, but through his magic, I was able to understand him perfectly.  “Yes, young one.  This is the end of the world.  Go back.  You know what you need to do.”

I did.  I needed to race back home and get my Facebook status updated before Beezlebub cut the power lines.

Happy Mayan Apocalypse Day Everyone!