“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five.”

It was the year of Our Lord two thousand and twenty. Charles Dickens was a time traveler. It can’t be more obvious that the man, or perhaps a woman in disguise, or maybe even a gender non-conforming person, was possessed of a secret science that allowed him/her/it to project into our time from his/her/its own.

However you want to present it though, here’s 2020 and at what other point in time could REM and Charles Dickens co-exist? When else could they co-habitate the same timeline? That can be said though, that at no other time but the present could it all come together and render linear time obsolete. A dead concept. It all matters so much less as the “widening gyre” expands and at the same time contracts into a tighter, faster spin. It’s not a question of doomsday prophecy so much as it is a matter of odds-making. It’s a matter of physics. There’s too much going on all at once at too high a velocity to be sustainable. We are absolutely on the brink of an event.

I don’t believe in the apocalypse beyond an apocalypse of the breakdown of previously held notions of truth and belief. Something big is about to happen though, and something global. The kids on the internet are engaged in all the dark humor of World War 3. I will say…

Perhaps.

Something big is about to happen.