Centuries later, chaos theorists would pour over his extant journals. They became fascinated by his predictions, sometimes so specific that his diary entries anticipated their own research into his system of ideas.

But what they saw as a nearly divine intuition of the universe, Holmes viewed as a curse.

I am left to wait virtually alone. The desolation leaves me feeling I am a character in a post-nuclear zombie p2p actioner. Hisamitsu and Starbucks and the latest Bruce Willis movie are the sponsors of my apocalypse. Even my daydreams have become corporatized.

I see her exit the underground. Her eyes never leave her mobile. She walks past, not even noticing the rain.

Her avatar pops onto my screen for a few fleeting seconds.

Millions of Catholics fleeing their home countries and flooding the Amazonian and South East Asian rain forests. Not only were the economies of entire regions being disrupted, but the environmental destruction was unprecedented.

The threats posed by climate change paled in comparison. The false modern idols–money and science, patriotism and Ronald McDonald–proved they were no rival to the power of religion. Millions would die due to the mistake.

Bartholomew and George faced their accusers girded by an equal mixture of fear and antipathy. The cowards did not even have the courtesy to face them, but hid behind a poster of black cloth.

“Do you wish to recant?” Only the worst offenders were given such an opportunity.

Bartholomew refused. “I will die first.”

And so he did. Gruesomely.

“And you, George, do you wish to recant?”