As the sun rises in the east late ninety nine/ The world is waking believing everything's fine/ A great cloud of dust gathers far out of sight/ A roaring crescendo of increasing might/

The city sleeps unaware of the dread./ Then the whispers are everywhere spread/ You'd better take heed of the forthcoming doom/ Unless you want to lay prematurely in your tomb/

With one voice they cry "stampede "stampede"/ The forces of blind panic do they insatiably feed/ The thundering roar comes relentlessly near/ Bringing with it the smell of undiluted fear/

Once in sight the clamour can be heard/ Not cattle but sheeple running scared/ The faces are transfixed with terror/ All because of this computer error/

A blackness descends all o'er the world/ As if a mightly meteor had been hurled/ Through space towards our small blue orb/ The calamity at first is hard to absorb/

The black choking cloud pervades everywhere/ Blocking the light of the sun from our stare/ The sheeple now stunned fail to comprehend/ Why this should be the cause of our very end/

The dinosaurs lived for many a year/ They spent all their time in close harmony/ Though they had minds the size of a pea/ Just content to wade through the Sargasso Sea/

They were destroyed by meteoric cloud/ The whole earth it did enshroud/ They choked on the stench of black soot and dust/ Finally quenching their carniverous lust/

But now our time now sadly draws near/ Like the ancient creatures we will disappear/ No need to ask the question how will it all be/ For whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee/

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), December 23, 1998

Answers

Bravo Richard. Not very upbeat, but necessarily provocative.

-- a (a@a.a), December 23, 1998.

For Whom the bell tolls, Good book, has an excellent discription of how to conduct an ambush. Excellent Hemmingway.

-- nine (nine_fingers@hotmail.com), December 23, 1998.

Richard, get your application in quick for the vacancy!!!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), December 23, 1998.

One can always depend on having Richard around to brighten things up, in that special Pollyanna way that he has.

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), December 23, 1998.

Richard,

Your Christmas assignment is to the hit the Wassil (-1 sp) bowl hard. Failing that, drink some of that hot spiced British rum punch. Cheer up friend!

Merry, merry. This year we party.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 24, 1998.