“Hell is only half full/Room for you and me,” Warren Zevon sang in “Monkey Wash, Donkey Rinse” on his album Mutineer. I have thought of these lines at odd intervals today, while reading about the people who believe the Rapture will happen tomorrow.

I’m not sure why I think of Zevon’s lyric, it’s not quite apropos–I understand that if the Rapture occurs, the Good are to go to Heaven, and the Bad are to stay here until further notice. Perhaps I’d better think of Steely Dan’s “Any man left on the Rio Grande/Is the King of the World, as far as I know.” from their post-apocalyptic “King of the World”.

Contra Tom Lehrer, it’s clear that the believers in this don’t think “We will all go together when we go.” But the world will supposedly take a geological turn for the worse, so it’s still to be more of a “bang than a whimper” and there seems to be a consensus it will be largely fire-based.

Forgive these allusions, dear Reader; but the subject of the end of the world is a popular one for poets and artists. And one can see why–it’s a haunting idea. I am sure that the dramatic possibilities are what has drawn so much interest in this little adventure in numerology.

I first heard about this project back in early 2010, and I was surprised to see it garner such attention in the press lately. I am fairly confident they are wrong, but if they are right, I suppose I’ll wish I had played less Fallout and more Left Behind: Eternal Forces for my post-apocalyptic game of choice.

But probably not.