Visions of Zombies Shuffle in My Head

Maybe I've been watching too much of The Walking Dead lately, but I've been having a recurring dream in which I'm fighting off zombies.  Not a massive Freudian leap to be made there, I grant you, but with the world all atingle at the thought of the impending apocalypse (again), I thought it worthy of note.  They've been sufficiently realistic dreams that I've contemplated acquiring a sword in case the apocalypse really does come. For the record, I'd like this one.

Recently, our Prime Minister made a speech for our national youth radio station, Triple J.

Some people have criticised her for this. Don't get me wrong - I'm not the biggest fan of ol' Julia, but she does deserve props for being a) the first Prime Minister to actually grace the station with her presence since its inception and b) taking two minutes out of her day to make that speech and show us that she does, in fact, have a sense of humour. That said, the end of the world seems to be a popular topic of discussion these days.

Just the other night I was at a pub with some friends and the topic came up. There ensued a debate on when the world was actually likely to end. I feel proud to live in such Interesting Times.  I have survived the Y2K disaster, the zyzygy doomsday prediction (not sure why the planets aligning spelled death for us but hey, never let logic get in the way of a good premise for an insane doomsday cult), the Rapture, and several different Made Up Nostradamus prophecies about the end of the world. 

So far, each and every one has proven to be an over-hyped disappointment.  No seas have boiled, no rivers have run red with blood, no locusts have wiped out our crops (though the nationwide domination of the cane toad is creeping its way inexorably across the continent), California has thus far failed to slide into the ocean on the back of a cataclysmic earthquake as has New Zealand, much to the chagrin of many a bogan redneck, and there have definitely been no official sightings of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, though the countdown for the annual Stalk of Santa has begun.

So, anyway, Friday night.  This is often our drinks night as, unlike me, most of them hold proper, grown-up, Monday-to-Friday jobs, and we meet at a pseudo-Irish pub in the city which, thanks to the high turnover of backpackers in this li'l ol' backwater country, provides a steady supply of genuinely Irish barman and barmaids. Somehow, we got to arguing over the exact date the world would end this time.  Some maintained it was already the last day, thanks to the power of the PM's speech.  This was enthusiastically endorsed by Guy We've Never Met Before But Who Felt Free To Join Our Table Anyway And Try To Hit On Every Woman There. Somehow, though, I doubt his vote was impartial, as it was inevitably followed up with a suggestion of making the most of our last night on earth.

Others maintained that the 21st of December is D-Day, as per the end of the Mayan calendar, while one person determinedly insisted that it was, in fact, the 22nd, which just reminded me of the whole millennium thing, where smug nerds maintained that, in fact, the True Millennium began in 2001, and refused to celebrate at the end of 1999 on principle. The following year the hipsters got their revenge, by proclaiming those millennium celebrations So Last Year.

Personally, I thought, Yay! TWOFER millennium celebrations!

We've survived the 7th December, so now the countdown is on to the 21st.  It seems kind of mean of ol' God to end the world four days before the day we celebrate his son's birth by contravening his lessons about gluttony and avarice, but hey, maybe that's the point.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS,

IS THIS THE END OF THE WORLD?

LOL, nope.

That said, as I'm writing this I'm snuggled up under a blanket drinking tea while it pours with rain outside, and it's the middle of December.  This would not be any great oddity if, in fact, I was in the UK, as I normally am this time of year to visit family.  However, I'm in Australia - Perth, to be precise.  Where by this point in the summer our brains are usually melting out of our ears from the heat.  This leads me to formulating two possible theories.

OR

That said, there is option number three...

Okay, THREE possible theories - climate change, I'm secretly Storm, or it's a coincidence. Then again, there is another possibility:

Okay, FOUR possible theories - climate change, I'm secretly Storm, it's a coincidence (BORING), or 

THE END OF THE WORLD IS

FINALLY ACTUALLY NIGH.

A red-headed friend of mine often talks about the impending Ranga Apocalypse, reminding us that we'll get ours when it comes.  A ranga PM was one of the major signs of its imminence.  So I put it to you: which is a more likely end for us - armageddon at the hands of some nebulous threat at the end of days, as predicted by the Mayan calendar, or a revolution led by millions of redheads; tired of all the hot-head-on-fire, no-soul, carrot-top jokes and discrimination finally taking matters into their own hands?

Imagine, if you will, the possible impending Ranga Apocalypse on the 21st December:

The streets are abandoned, crashed and overturned cars litter the streets.  The major highways are thusly blocked, so the survivors are making their way into the hills on foot.  Behind them, in the smoky, hazy distance - not because of the apocalypse, but because this is summer in Australia and bushfires are a constant reality - lurch hundreds upon thousands of vacant-eyed, redheaded zombies.  But instead of brains, they are after...

YOUR SOUL.

So far, this blog is proving to be about 50% coffee, and 50% zombies.  I don't want to know what Freud would make of THAT.