SANDWICH BOARD

“The end is near! The end is near!”

Every day he walked the streets, sandwich board slung on his shoulders, yelling his warning at all who came near. His hair oily and matted with dirt. He smelled of body oder and urine and spoiled milk. He wore all the clothes he own, layered and torn a smudged with life.

“The end is coming! The time is at hand!”

Everyone who came across him knew he was obviously crazy.

The sandwich board was made of cardboard and held together with twine. On the front get had written in black marker “THE END IS NEAR” on the back the back “REPENT.” It was ripped and stained. It was not the first sadwich board he'd made. Not by a long way.

His eyes were always wide open and wild, rarely blinking. He was always trying to make eye contact and most people had the instinctual awareness to turn away. When he did catch someone's eyes, he would zero in and raise is voice even louder.

“You! You are going to die! You and your friends and your family! Take account! Take! A! Count!”

People rarely engaged him. No one wanted to talk to someone crazy, especially not a dirt stranger. Where was upside? He was so clearly gone. What could one person do on the street? He clearly needed professional help.

And, of course, the average person couldn't be bothered. They had enough of their own problems. Life was to short to worry about a mad man yelling about the end of the world.

“You have been warned! Don't say I didn't warn you!”

Some people are of course cruel. Or just angry.

Sometimes they yelled back at him, called him names. Sometimes they yelled threats. Often a group of youths would point and laugh. Sometimes hey would follow him for blocks, mocking him loudly. When people are unsure of their own lives, hurting inside and feeling lonely, or just looking to not feel bad about themselves, they will strike out at others. The strange becomes the target of their own doubts and fears. If this man was forcing himself into their lives with his yelling, his judgement, then they felt that mad him an open target to their wrath.

He never cared. It never effected him because he only cared about delivering his message.

“You have brought it about yourselves! Because you forget! You forget!”

There had been many times people had thrown garbage at him. Or stones. He had been punched and kicked. Sometimes, when it got dark, they would fall upon him in a pack and beat him until he could not move.

There had been a time, long ago, when madness was viewed as having insight in to the unseen world. Seers and oracles, able to talk to powers beyond the veil, their words cryptic wisdoms from the past or future. They were thought to be touched by the divine. Some times they were more than just touched. Sometimes they were the divine. But that was long ago.

“The end is near! Perhaps tonight! Or tomorrow! But it is close!

Every night, when his legs were too tired to carry him and his throat too sore to yell, he would return to where he lived. He had lived in shacks and castles. In forests and deserts. Currently, he lived under the overpass to the highway. It was near the river, which meant rats like to live there too. He ignored them because they'd never understand his message. And other homeless avoided the place due to the rats and the man.

He'd remove his sandwich board and lay it carefully down against the concrete. He's remove the scraps of food he'd gathered during the day. He did not require much food, not much at all. More out of habit. He pretended they were offerings like he had once received. Fatted calfs and bowls of honey. He would dream of those days so far gone as he slowly chewed stale pizza crusts and potato chip crumbs.

When he was finished eating, he'd crawl under the small shelter of cardboard and tin and wood he'd built. Just enough space for his body and a few blankets. Once he'd slept one beds of fire and flesh, of sky and passion. That was when he was a feared god. A god of destruction and pain. He's been worshipped by millions, whole civilizations. Now there were only a handful that knew he'd once existed and even fewer that knew his true name. But it was enough.

He pull out the sphere from beneath the blankets. Pieces of clay and twigs and leaves and garbage and bone and fur. He had been crafting it for millennium, pouring each whisper of worship he received in it. He wasted none of the belief in him on worldly or other worldly pleasures. It all when into this sphere that, over the years, had begun to look more and more like the globe.

From his pockets he'd pull a penny or scrap of paper he'd found or been given. Even a flyer for a suit sale had a wisp of worship in it. He's stick it in his mouth and chew (yes, even a penny) and mix it with his saliva. And then he'd carefully place it into the sphere, bring it that much closer to completion.

He had been a god of death and destruction. Once there had been a people on the earth that believed he would bring about the end. Once he'd finished his tiny Earth, he would prove them right. Just a bit more. Just a bit more.

In his dark shelter, amongst the rats and the rumble of the cars over his head, he would whisper to himself.

“The end is near. The end is near.”