a party in hell

It's a holiday in Hell, Michigan. They've been waiting for two thousand, six years, six months and six days for it, but the town is having the blowout party of a lifetime to celebrate the "most evil and sinister day of the century." Although this is not the first time the calendar has read 06/06/06, it's the first and only time anyone who is alive today will see such a calendar page. The last time it happened was a thousand years ago, then a thousand years before that. Actually, that first June 6th was the only legitimate six-six-six day ever. The rest are copies of the original with an additional thousand years tacked on.

It's turned into quite a festival of events too. A major motion picture showcasing the birth and life of a kid who grows up as the Antichrist debuts today. It's a remake of an older movie. I didn't see the original. I most likely will not see the remake. I'm not into horror sorts of films. I heard there is another movie opening in theaters today too. It's called The Beast.

Then there are the Christian opportunists who've taken advantage of the occasion to market their own version of stuff that seems more appealing to us on a day like this.

I'm into the Left Behind book series. I think we're up to book 57 now (exaggeration). I've invested in every book (hard back edition) in the series, so I sorta feel like I'll be abandoning ship if I don't stay with it at this point.

When the first book in the series was released I grabbed it and read it fast, I was thrilled to know there would be a follow-up book. I was still excited when the story continued into yet another edition. I was thinking I'd heard somewhere that there would be five or seven books in the series altogether. But I knew something was happening when the first two books covered two years, and the third and fourth only six weeks (exaggeration). Now we're up to book number fifteen with the 060606 release of what I was sure had to be the last title, The Rapture. Not so.

I actually got my copy of the book yesterday. Feeling like I'd been lured into a buying pattern that I couldn't escape, I turned to one of the inside front pages where all of the previous titles are listed to find out if this was in fact going to finally be the end. At some point these folks have to die. As a matter of fact, if you've read the series, you know that they actually did - a book or two ago. That was supposed to be the end, but someone who saw this as a way good opportunity decided that all of us with the dollars to buy the books would enjoy learning about the births, lives, baptisms and possessions of the characters we'd come to know so well. So we started all over again, just earlier in time.

So now, here we are on June 6, 2006 picking up where we left off. It's the perfect day for a book called The Rapture to be released. And I learn that this will in fact not be the end. There will be more after The Rapture. Even though eyes have not seen and ears have not heard and it has not even entered into a man's heart what Heaven will be like, somehow Tim and Jerry will find a way to put it into words and sell it in a book. Lord knows they're good at both.