suffer, endure.  Do I need to be more specific?  Happy St. Patrick's Day.

 Robert on the Ally McBeal set.
Copyright Bianca Dorso

"At the still point of the turning world.  Neither flesh nor fleshless;
 Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
 But neither arrest nor movement.  And do not call it fixity,
 Where past and future are gathered.  Neither movement from nor towards,  
 Neither ascent nor decline.  Except for the point, the still point,
 There would be no dance, and there is only the dance."

- T.S. Eliot  Four Quartets. "Burnt Norton"

It must be the wild wind raging lately, last night, this morning, that lends this air of urgency to everything.  I feel like I'm rushing to get things down.  [Why Robert?  Why Eliot?  Why not Colin Farrell and Yeats? I don't know.]

"I suspect it's either the wind or the medications in the water supply," says Pippa.

"?"

"Oh I assumed you knew.  Estrogen, Zanax, Lithium, the purple pill, that sort of thing.  The water treatment facilities aren't set up to filter pharmaceutical pollutants.  You're all being pumped full of anti-depressants and hormones.  Yes, bottled water too, I'm afraid."

"Not to mention what's in the chemtrails," offers Nelly helpfully.

"?" I ask again.

"The criss-crossing vapor trails in the sky, my precious, my pet," she explains.  "You don't think they're from jets, do you?  Well, I mean, but you don't think they're good for you?"

"Then there's all that microwave bombardment the Russians employed during the Cold War."

"Heaven only knows what damage that accomplished," Pippa adds.  She turns to me with a sympathetic look.  "Don't look so surprised.  Back in Nixon's time, the Moscow Embassy staff used to burst into tears and go mad at the drop of a hat.  Terrible depression, suicidal, the whole bunch of them, the poor dears.  They got it the worst.  So no wonder you're feeling a certain urgency now.  I should think that would be putting it mildly.  Age of Anxiety indeed."

"But there is still all the anti-depressant in the water," Nelly points out again.  "Which should help some.  With the pain at least."

"True."

"Ladies," I interrupt.  "You came to spoil my St. Patrick's Day with this unpleasant news?"

They look at me, these two ghostly [dead] Victorian ladies, with their heads tipped to one side.  Quizzical.

"The end is near," they say together, as if that made it all better.

"Will I still have to pay the rent?" I ask hopefully.

At this they nod sadly and admit there is a downside to the news.  That's the only problem with the End Times.  The good news is, it is almost all over.  The bad news is, you still have to come up with the rent. 

The Banks have a contingency plan.  Trust me, I know.  I worked for a bank once.  I typed that plan.  They will be debiting your account in the middle of the Apocalypse.  You will be charged overdraft and service fees during Armageddon.  Nuclear holocaust will not stop that mortgage payment being due.

You say everything's gone?  You're nothing but an incinerated shadow on the basement wall?  You'll need to put that in writing.

Now, as they say in Chicago, go dye that river green, my little hooligans.  23 skiddoo, oh Danny Boyo.