scooped from the loverly lovecraftienne

May 10, 2005 09:05

Scene: a suburban street, in any town, anywhere. Semi-detached houses, large lots.
Time: Early evening

A young man approaches the door. He is heavily armed and armoured. Ridiculously heavily armed and armoured. He's got missile launchers, swords, axes, guns, and so many grenades he looks like a metal grapevine. And he's wearing a crusader tabard over the lot of it, trying to look...inconspicuous.

He nears the door, and looks up to study the house number carefully. He is satisfied that this is, in fact, his target.

He reaches for the giant knocker, a demon's face holding the ring in its toothy misshapen mouth, and firmly raps upon the door.

Heavy footsteps approach from inside.

He spoke in as deep a voice as he could manage: "Foul Beast, prepare to - hang on."

The door opens on a woman, in her 50s, wearing a flower-print dress, with a handkerchief knotted over her dark, grey-streaked and stringy hair.

"Yeah? Whatcha want?"

"Um...I was...that is, you're not...I mean, the house number is..."

"Oh, right, you're another one of those stupid Beast Hunters. Look, I KNOW you think the Beast lives at number 666, but I'm getting more than a little tired of this. He lives down the road at number six ONE six, alright, love? Now clear off!"

"You're sure? I mean, I couldn't come in and look around for a bit, maybe set off a few Mark XVI BeastSeeking Missiles? You know, just in-"

"Six. One. Six. Look, I don't know how long I've been telling your lot this, but I promise you, there's no Beast here. He lives down at number 616. You'll know it, He's got a lovely front garden. Now CLEAR OFF!"

As she turned away and closed the heavy door, she could be heard to mutter something about "bloody typos".

Discomfited, the Beast Hunter turned, slowly and sadly walking off in the indicated direction.

-=-=-

From today's Globe and Mail:

616: "A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups and television evangelists have got the wrong number," reports The Independent on Sunday. "Instead of 666, it's actually the far less ominous 616. The new fragment from the Book of Revelation, written in ancient Greek and dating from the late third century, is part of a hoard of previously unintelligible manuscripts discovered in historic dumps outside Oxyrhynchus in Egypt."
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