The end times are coming and the MAGAts missed the Jesus Train
Are these the end times?
Scripture says the end times would be marked by the arrival of a false prophet who would seduce millions of the faithful to abandon the way of Christ and follow him.
That certainly seems to be happening. In fact, if you took President Lucifer, sat him down, parted that demonic comb-over and checked, you’d probably find the Mark of the Beast, a 666, inscribed in his scalp – although in his case it would be a 333 seeing as how he’s such a halfwit.
What I want to know is, how are the MAGAts going to explain it when the Rapture occurs and they’re all still here? It would almost be worth remaining on Earth to see the expression on their faces when they look around and realize the Jesus Train has left the station and THEY are not aboard.
MAGAts … you got some ’splainin’ to do.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Netflix.
“Leave the World Behind” Starring Julia Roberts as Amanda Sandford, Mahershala Ali as G.H. Scott, Ethan Hawke as Clay Sandford and Myha’la as Ruth Scott. Directed by Sam Esmail. Two hours, 18 minutes. Rated R. Streaming on Netflix.
Del’s take
Early on in “Leave the World Behind,” Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) mutters, “I fucking hate people.” Well congratulations, Amanda. The people haven’t let you down.
On this side of the silver screen MAGAdiots are flocking to Google and trashing “Leave the World Behind” with one-star reviews. Their outrage is so dim they can’t even write their own reviews – they’ve copied a template over and over again, rearranging a sentence here, deleting a sentence there, it’s all the same review – which means 99 percent of them haven’t even seen the movie.
Why are they doing this?
Because “Leave the World Behind” was produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, and God forbid the Obamas do anything (not including stripping for a men’s magazine or trying to overthrow the government) without the MAGAdiots going on the attack.
Sounds like a movie I could get behind, right? Well, no, not exactly. It isn’t worthy of one star but “Leave the World Behind” is a strangely unsatisfying condemnation of the witless tragedy overtaking America today.
First, the required plot summary … or I could be a sadistic ass and leave it for Mladen. Nah. It’s Christmas, Theo. It’s the time for miracles. I’ll do it myself.
Amanda, Clay Sandford (played by Ethan Hawke) and their two annoying teenaged children, the perpetually horny Archie (Charlie Evans) and the shrill, selfish Rose (Farrah Mackenzie), escape from New York for a weekend away from the dispiriting press of those fucking people Amanda hates. They flee to an ultra modern, high-tech Airbnb in the woods, which mysteriously becomes Ground Zero for a herd of noble-but-angry-looking deer.
While luxing at this secluded mansion the Sandfords slowly become aware of an “event” that has taken place in the outside world. An oil tanker runs aground at their private beach. The TV produces nothing but snow, and the internet has stopped working, much to the annoyance of young Rose, who’s been binging on “Friends” and lacks only the final episode to complete this chapter in the decomposition of her young brain.
That night, an African American couple knocks on the door, G.H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la). As it happens Mr. Scott is the owner of their rented uber-tech nest and, incredibly, wants to impose on their weekend to take shelter from a blackout that has affected the city. What ensues, then, is an ugly revealing of the nasty qualities that afflict 21st century America.
“Leave the World Behind” is an examination of the claustrophobia and xenophobia of nesting gone wrong. Amanda’s distrust of the Scotts, and her disbelief that they could even own the Airbnb, illustrates white America’s innate and, dare I say, racist perception of black people. In another scene, Clay Sandford leaves a Latino woman – who is clearly in distress – by the side of the road because he can’t understand what she’s saying and doesn’t want to get involved – refrains of “Build a wall!” Ruth’s inherent hostility toward white people guarantee tense relations between her and Amanda, and all four of the adults flirt with at least the fringes of infidelity. Oh, and then there’s the deer thing: Apparently the deer are pissed off about how mankind has treated nature.
In other words, all kinds of shit is going down the proverbial crapper, all of it at the same time. “Leave the World Behind” is a who’s who and what’s what about the wrongness of America, which left me feeling empty because it never provides a clear description of what exactly is happening – beyond vague references to a cyberattack – and never gives a hint of a solution, or at least a resolution. At times I felt like I was watching an extended episode of “Lost.” Call it the Damon Lindelof School of Ambiguous Storytelling.
The acting is fine – Julia Roberts is a bitch like I’ve never seen – and Ethan Hawke captures an almost George-like zeitgeist (Richard Burton in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”) as the ever accommodating, ever-apologizing Clay. Mahershala Ali’s G.H. Scott is deferential to the point of caricature, while Ruth, she of the withering fury, is cynical in a way most Gen-Zers would decry (but in fact is true of that disaffected generation).
Sound effects are spot on. Distant gunshots, explosions, ships running aground and plane crashes – wow! But the musical soundtrack was way too loud and way too intrusive. Or maybe I’m showing my age – never forget I’m a gassy old fart.
“Leave the World Behind” is controversial and I guess if it’s your ox being gored, you’ll hate it (which means lots of one-star reviews from MAGAdiots). It’s got peccadilloes I could crab about all day, but it’s major flaw is that it tries to do too many things at once and, as a result, does none of them well.
I won’t give it a one-star review because we don’t use stars; we use grades. My grade would be a C+. If nothing else it’s a good barometer of your MAGA sympathies.
For God’s sake, don’t be one of those fucking people.
Mladen’s take
But for Del, I would be unaware that MAGAaniacs have inundated “Leave the World Behind” with template reviews. I’m amazed that ERID sycophants can read well enough to know how to use a prefabricated takedown of any movie. ERID, incidentally, is my nickname for Trump. ERID stands for Emotionally Retarded, Intellectually Disabled. An accurate description of the one-term loser poser president. No?
Del is correct and I’ll leave that statement as is without, for example, adding a disclaimer such as “for the first time ever.” “Leave the World Behind,” despite the star power, is vague, unfulfilling, and ennui laden. I hate people, too, but does that sentiment warrant a movie?
Pretty much from the beginning to the end of the film I was asking myself what’s the point. If you have 138 minutes to make the sweeping argument that Mankind, as a whole, is a heap of shit, though some of its individual components are OK, and that democracy is fragile, do it clearly. An example? Another Netflix original film, “Don’t Look Up.” Good god, what’s up with the swarming, judgmental deer or the flamingoes landing in a pool thousands of miles from their habitat? Come on, flamingoes are wading birds. They can’t swim in deep water like freaking ducks. That fact wouldn’t change no matter how their migration patterns are disrupted by inexplicable, hyper-noise that periodically filled the outdoors in “Leave the World Behind.”
I don’t know. Maybe the problem with “Leave the World Behind” is that it’s too realistic. When civilization, I use the term loosely, starts to collapse, it’s reasonable to assume many of us will fail to notice the onset of End Time. And, by the time it occurs to us that what we’ve built we’re now destroying, it’ll be too late to act. Survival will be a simple dichotomy – either you’re at the wrong place at the wrong time or you’re at the right place at the wrong time.
One more suggestion, now that I think even more fruitlessly about the film. If you watch “Leave the World Behind,” consider it inside the framework of social satire. The film ain’t no “Brazil” or “Being There,” not even close, but there’s an underlying absurdity or, oh, ridiculousness to it. The U.S. is disappearing, apparently at the misdirection of a global cabal of elites, but the teenaged boy masturbates to cell phone pictures he surreptitiously took of the almost-woman also marooned at the big, fancy house the Sanfords rented for a weekend getaway. Mrs. Sanford and Mr. Scott, the almost-woman’s father, contemplate sex, though both are married and one of the spouses, Mr. Sanford, is on the property. Yes, Big Picture trouble has arrived but people will want to screw anyway. Ain’t that darkly funny?
Should you see “Leave the World Behind?” Sincerely, I don’t care. See it. Don’t see it. As it turned out, my rationalization for seeing the movie formed after I saw it. I watched “Leave the World Behind” to demonstrate solidarity with Del. Like him, I’m troubled by ERID’s MAGAdiots.
Mladen Rudman is a former newspaper reporter and technical manuals writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.