Beastie: A tempest in a teacup

As the weather reports kept popping up on TV this week, a thought formed in my head-- first just a squall in the farthest reaches of my mindscape, later becoming a full-blown mental typhoon screaming a constant question: "Could Hurricane Dean be the Antichrist?"

I had never considered a natural phenomenon as a candidate, but wouldn't it be just like the arch-deceiver to try to sneak in under the Doppler radar, so to speak? In these days of spiritual perversity, one can never be too careful.

With mesmerizing images of a gigantic, swirling powerhouse of energy devouring Yucatan and wreaking destruction along its path, there was no time to lose. Besides, it was heading straight for Texas.

After boarding up our windows and sealing the doors, I put the Beastie Machine into its waterproof casing. If nothing else survived, at least someone could recover it's valuable data.

I fed in "Hurricane Dean." The numbers totalled to only 625. "Bad ol' Hurricane Dean" boosted the results to 661. "Category Four Dean" notched it up to 662. Then I hit a wall.

"Deceitful Category One Dean," "Deceptive ol' Category One Dean," and "Lewd Hurricane Dean" all came up the same at 665.

"Malevolent ol' Category Five Dean" was too high at 667.

Wait! Our word "hurricane" comes from either Hunraken, the Mayan storm god, or Hurakan, the Quiche god of thunder and lightning. Maybe if I switched to Spanish terminology I could break out of the doldrums.

Sure enough, "Malo toxico huracan Dean" and "Infecto huracan Dean" both tallied to 664. Now I was getting somewhere.

But then I hit the wall again.

"Vil demoniaco huracan Dean," "Malo infame huracan Dean" and "Muy malo y danino huracan Dean" all kept sticking at 665.

Switching back to English, I tried nouns--dastard, diablo, enfant terrible, fiend, hellion, imp, knave, monster, ogre, rogue, scamp, scoundrel, villain. Then I tried adjectives--Mephistophelian, accursed, atrocious, bad, brutish, cloven-footed, cursed, damnable, demoniac, demonic, detestable, diabolic, diabolical, evil, execrable, fiendish, hellborn, hellish, infernal, iniquitous, nefarious, satanic, serpentine, unhallowed, villainous.

After hours of spiritual struggle, I was exhausted. The Beastie machine was heating up to dangerous levels. The answer was slipping from my fingertips. As the sun came up, CNN reported that Dean had been downgraded to a tropical depression. The skies overhead looked calm.

In the end, I had to defer to scripture. The number 666 is "the number of a man," after all. Although a hurricane has an eye, that's all the anthropomorphic similarity there is.

I had been chasing wind, a vapor, a puff of inconsequential ether.

Such is my life as a watchman on the wall, constantly on guard against numerological intrusion and stealthy theological attack.

But I AM gonna cancel The Weather Channel.


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