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George Wells did not consider himself to be overly religious, but he did attend
church every Sunday. This Sunday was no different than the last Sunday or the
Sunday before that except that George suddenly found he had walked into the
wrong church.
Woolgathering, thought George. I wasn't paying attention. Must've walked right by my own church. No telling how far I went before walking into this church. George was about to get up and leave when the choir started to sing. Ah well, he thought. I'll be late for services in my own church, I might as well stay here. It seems a nice enough church. George stayed. The services were much like those in his own church, and he was feeling quite comfortable until he had his vision. It was just after the sermon when he suddenly had a startling, clear vision of the end of the world. It played through his head in wide screen 3D with stereo sound. The vision couldn't have been more plain. George knew exactly when and how the world would end. George rushed home from the church service. He burst into his home, grabbed pencil and paper, sat at the kitchen table and began to scribble furiously. He spent the rest of the day and most of the night drawing, writing, and calculating. The next day he went to a lumber mill and ordered copious amounts of wood. He then raced to a hardware store and bought all manner of tools. George paced furiously in front of his house until the lumber he had ordered arrived. The delivery truck had barely unloaded its cargo when George attacked the pile of wood with fervor. He measured, he sawed, he nailed. He stopped at dusk, fearing his neighbors would call the police if he tried to continue into the night. George kept up the pace for weeks, nervously eyeing a date he had circled in red on the calendar in his kitchen. He ignored his phone. He also ignored the questions of his neighbors, who wanted to know why he was building a huge boat in his back yard. George finished his project, which was indeed a huge boat, the day before the date circled in red on his calendar. He spent the remaining time driving from store to store, buying huge quantities of canned foods, camping supplies, survival gear, and everything else he thought he might need to survive the end of the world. That night George finally slept, knowing he was saved. Bright and early the next day, George packed the last of his provisions on his boat. He climbed aboard, and despite the clear sky, he donned heavy rain gear. He pulled out a shortwave radio, turned it on, and waited. About mid-morning the sky began to darken. And darken. And darken. The wind started to blow. The shortwave radio began issuing reports of abnormal weather all over the world. The reports became more frantic as the news services realized this was not merely freak weather. It's true, thought George. It's here. The cataclysm. The end of the world. And I'm safe. He smiled and looked heavenward. His smile faltered when he noticed that ash was falling from the sky. Not rain. Ash, and then small bits of debris started to accumulate on the deck of his boat. Soon the particles got bigger and some of them trailed smoke. The precipitation got heavier and the air was filled with flaming rocks. George slowly began to realize that he had not been saved after all. Damn! He thought. I knew I was in the wrong church!
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