When I was thirteen I was sitting in my English class and the world ended or at least it began to end. At least that's what I thought. Somewhere in the distance there was this almighty explosion and a rumble that shook the whole room and I thought the world was about to end. When it didn't I felt like an idiot—the loud boom had been a huge cooling tower being demolished—but the important point here is my gut reaction. I was terrified. Luckily I didn't fall to my knees and start praying or anything (that would've been hard to live down) but I might've done such was my fear, the fear that's been installed in me by my well-meaning, godfearing parents.

 

Here's the thing though: why was I afraid? Because I wasn't sure I'd be saved. The simple fact is I had a far better chance then than now. I knew I was going through the motions but at least I was trying and that counts for something. Doesn't it? Hard to second-guess God.

 

There's a brief mention in The More Things Change of "the signs of the times"—wars, earthquakes, famine, pestilence etc—because the propinquity of the end of days is part of the plot and I make a joke of it but that's now. In the early seventies we read into everything and that's a terrible way to live, it really is.