Mayan Apocalypse 2012: Dispatch From the End of the World

Ten days prior to the day after the Mayan apocalypse, NASA released a little tidbit titled "Why The World Didn't End Yesterday." In a display scientific bravado, the narrator announces, "December 22, 2012. If you're watching this video, it means one thing: the world didn't end yesterday." This video was meant to placate skeptics and dispel any notions that the world might end in the days leading up to December 21, 2012.

Oh how little those geeks knew. The date is 13 baktun, 0 k'atun, 0 tun, 0 winal, and 1 k'in, or what NASA calls December 22, and I’m writing to you as the Mayan apocalypse unfolds behind me.

To their credit, most of what NASA said was correct: December 21, 2012 indeed marked the thirteenth baktun and the Mayan long count calendar reset to 13.0.0.0.0, as it looked 5,125 years ago, when the Mayans posit the world was created.

There was no cataclysmic collision with Niburu or any other celestial body. The guys with the biggest telescopes can certainly be trusted on this. Likewise, the sun didn’t seem particularly menacing nor did the polarity of the Earth change, and nothing out of the ordinary happened due to the cosmic alignment that comes about yearly on the solstice.

What happened is that Lord Itzamna himself appeared on the face of the planet and, for whatever reason, decided to turn everyone into Mayan glyphs. To the best of my appreciation Lord Itzamna, in all his wisdom, has decided to play a Bejeweled-like tile game with a transfigured humanity. 

The writing was really on the walls for this oneOddly enough, not even the Mayas could have warned that this would happen, and they even seemed oblivious to the phenomenon. None of the arrests, the panic and the preparations that were made in countries like China, Russia and the United States helped whatsoever.

Of course, all of the end of the world parties came to an abrupt end once the Mayan creator god showed up. Those of us who took this event ironically really felt like assholes then, but at least we had fun right up until it happened.

I’m taking advantage of a time-wormhole bonus Lord Itzamna produced after matching five of us in a row in order to report on this. Take this as a warning, but don’t panic. December 21 is coming.