The end was nigh

Billboard in Lilongwe, Malawi

All the data we absorb sometimes comes together—like the apocalypse. My shortwave radio is one source of data. The radio and I ritualistically go round the horn. We are looking for eccentric personalities, languages whose sounds resemble death throes, music produced by beating together cow dung. While searching for something strange, I often came across an American voice. He was clearly an older man, talked like a stone-filled muffler. And he always took phone calls about Jesus or the apocalypse.

Another source of information: Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe. There is a billboard that announces the apocalypse sometime end of May.

Letters provide more relevant data. A friend traveling around France said a group of Americans had set up camp near a mountain. The aliens would find them there during the apocalypse sometime end of May.

Then, sometime end of May I was listening to the BBC World Service and suddenly the old guy with the bad muffler voice came on. And it talked to a British guy! “Can we interview you the day after the apocalypse?” the British guy wanted to know. Unfortunately the muffler voice guy said he wouldn’t be around the day after the apocalypse. He said the British guy wouldn’t be around either.

I understood. These things were connected—the eccentric, the billboard, the alien mountain, and the BBC. Somehow the eccentric scared people in the States, who strangely gave the eccentric money and moved to France, so the eccentric bought billboard space in Lilongwe, Malawi and a whole bunch of other places, which of course roused the interest of the BBC’s Newshour, a program to which I often listen. I had no idea the clearly half-baked guy on my shortwave had a global following!

The week after the apocalypse, another volunteer and I were waving down cars on the side of the road. We needed to get into Lilongwe. A lovely old grandmother stopped for us. She was driving with her grandson. He was a college student on holiday. He asked if the Americans would arrest the clearly half-baked voice muffler guy for causing such a ruckus. I explained this idea, freedom of speech, and that the States digs such an idea.

I asked if he had been worried. “Yes,” he said turning seriously around to look at me in the back seat, “I prayed all Saturday.” What do you say to that? I mean, we had a free lift to the capital with Grandma. Do you laugh? That’d be rude. But, yes, I laughed—loudly. And I don’t know if the BBC did get that interview.