Being the private papers of Jassasa, the goat-spy of the true False Messiah, the End-of-Times Deceiver, the One-Eyed Antichrist aka Dajjal
Page the 1st—In which is revealed how Dajjal and Jassasa were alerted to the approach of the End of Time
OKAY, SO NOW it's confirmed: Evil's really risen in the world.
This morning as I lay supine at the cave entrance, my Master returned from his walk by the seashore and tossed me a tin can. It was the kind in which one finds stuffed toys. They come to me by hazard—the same process by which other inedible items of value found washed up on our island have entered my collection. Already in possession of the stuffed moose and kangaroo in this particular series, I was hoping this time the bounty of the sea had capsized a boat to send me a stuffed elephant.
As I eagerly pulled at the tab with my teeth, Master came close to share in my joy. But the popping of the can was the knock-knocking of evil. When he saw what the can contained, Master let out an Arrrgh! and rushed out of the cave. It was not a stuffed animal that had fallen out of the can but a familiar piece of cardboard covered with pictograms depicting Master and me in attitudes that offered slanderous sexual comment on our Platonic relationship. When the first such message was received in a clear glass bottle about a month back, Master had reluctantly and haltingly explained to me what these reprehensible motifs signified. Seeing how upset he had become upon its receipt, I had quietly put the paper back into the bottle, sealed it as before and thrown it back into the sea. I did the same with the next few bottled messages. I read all of them and must admit that some of them were funny.
Once, when Master was out walking, with me following grazing lazily at a distance, I looked up and caught him hurling a bottle into the sea. I felt glad that he had learned to ignore those dirty messages. I did not realize that before returning the bottle to the sea, my impulsive Master had put in it a paper scrawled with a pictogram message, for the sender, after his own heart.
That was a big mistake. The person or persons sending those bottled messages, perhaps in the hope of finding some confirmation of Master's presence in those aquatic environs, had finally received it in his own hand.
From the next day we daily found multiple bottles on our shores. Sometimes there were two, sometimes as many as four. I once also saw a fifth bottle floating in the waves but for some reason it did not make it to the island. The fecundity of a dirty mind is a phenomenon deserving close study. No two pictograms were alike, but there was clearly more than one party involved in the drawing of them. I had become an amateur of the genre from daily study and could see manifested in one particular style the mechanical thrashings of a caustic wit.
Master let me handle the gathering and disposal of the bottles. He had learned his lesson.
The present canned message, however, is a provocation addressed to me. Whoever sent it knows not only about our presence on the island, he also knows I like stuffed toys out of cans. To malign the innocent relationship between a man and his goat friend is one thing; to make a document of it and secret it away in an innocent can of promised toy something else altogether. It is the sign of malignant evil uncoiling itself and now in a slimy, slithering fashion fully afoot in the world.
It means of course that the time has come to set in motion the plans for Master's foretold advent. I have to gently break it to him. He has more than once made it clear to me where he stands on that whole creating-rumpus-at-the-End-of-Time thing. He has done what he was required to do, imparting to me a training in disguise and such, but he has often told me of his absolute happiness in his life on the isle in my companionship, and that he would much rather spend his days there to the End of Time making gentle rumpus with his hairy paws splashing in the waves.
But alas, destiny is not for our own making as frequently as we would like it to be. Moreover, I have been poked cruelly in my soft emotions by the canned message received today, and I am full eager that the person or persons who have sent the unsigned pictograms should speedily encounter their just deserts.
I think I will tell the Master to prepare for his advent after he has had his supper. As soon as he finishes his sea-urchin torte I will spring him with a melodious "Hear, hear! Da End of Time's here."
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Postcards from the Archive: Goodbye 2011 | December 31, 2011
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