Apocalypse Now!

Rome today issued a proclamation announcing the end of the world. Vatican experts remained dumbfounded as the Pope declared that not only were all signs of the apocalypse upon us but that it was now immanent.

He claimed the signs were too disturbing to share with a nervous public. “But the end is nigh” he concluded “and that’s a fact”.

Hard-line Catholics have stopped paying taxes; Priests have started saying Sunday Mass every day and most Churches are having their spires replaced by landing pads for Angels.

Muslims all over the world have called a global holiday as they deem any excuse to celebrate a good one. Buddhists are confused about what they will come back as, when there is nowhere to come back to. Atheists have refused to believe but admit that they have “Nothing” to worry about – doubtless a reference to the void they think the Hereafter to be.

Although, the Pope is considered the best judge of when Judgment Day arrives, the Jews have belligerently dubbed his doomsday prediction a false alarm. They claim that he simply loves the smell of Brimstone in the morning and cite his predecessor Innocent III’s wrongly predicted apocalypse as an example of what happens when a Pontiff gets too pompous.

The Pope’s warning has stirred a wider global panic than Y2K. One billion people have already killed themselves in anticipation of the end and the remaining five have been left quite perturbed. The Pope, nonetheless, remains self assured that his duties have been fulfilled and has made peace with the inevitable.

“I’ve even prepared my last words” he said. “They will be ‘I told you so’.”