As the old year puts on its pumped-up Kicks and desperately sprints towards Oblivion like a piece of clickbait charging towards your attention span, I, Jeff Mach, Dark Lord, offer you unto you this New Year’s curse:
“Let all those who invade the sanctity of my tomb in the Great Pyramid know that I shall arise from my sarcophagus to wreak upon you vengeance from beyond the grave!”
Wait. Waaaaaait. Wrong curse. I used that, ah,let’s just say, it’s been done, that’s a little out of date, and I’m a different person these days. Sorry. Got a lot on my mind lately. Now, for your actual curse, hold on, I’ve got it around here somewhere….ah!
“Though this year of 1066 was truly epic, future generations shall be easily convinced that it’s known for the signing of the Magna Carta instead of the Battle of Hastings, and, what’s worse, most of them won’t really care.”
Uh. I mean, yeah, that’s accurate, but it’s not exactly the spine-tingling, blood-galvanizing atrocity I was seeking. Also, I’m pretty sure this isn’t 1067.
“For lo! There shall be signs and portents, portents and signs, more signs, a couple extra portents, a few highly portentous signs, and—”
Sorry. Sorry. Technically, yes, that’s true, but honestly, we now take in more data in a single day than most humans absorbed in a lifetime. We’re not going to notice any signs and/or portents, and if we did, we’d probably just wipe them out with ad blockers.
Hm. “May you use the wrong fork you the next time you eat vichyssoise!”
There, that’s a real killer!
…what?
You were already gonna do that?
Assuming you ever, for some reason, eat vichyssoise in the first place?
Hellfire.
Alright, then. I’m just gonna let it roll and see what happens. Remember, you asked for this:
“May you be troubled by moral ambiguity, such that you sometimes begin to doubt the idea that your side is right about absolutely everything.”
“May many of your wishes come true…you poor devil.”
“May you find yourself in New Jersey at least once this year, even if you don’t deserve it.”
“May you realize that you aren’t as good with ketchup as the Sages usually suggest, but for reals, Dragons would eat you anyway, given the chance.”
“May you accidentally click ‘like’ on the wrong Youtube video and may Youtube then spend the next month exposing you to viewpoints and opinions which you previously thought were held entirely by monsters, but which sometimes make useful points worth hearing.”
“May that cute cashier at your local convenience store turn out to be something as simple and uncomplicated as a monster which lures people to its lair and drinks their vital fluids and disposes of the bodies in a bath of hydrochloric acid, and not something as terrifying as a date.”
“May you figure out that the Internet isn’t always right.”
“May you develop an immunity to Manticore poison…the hard way.”
“May you be surrounded by books and yet still want more.”
“May the New Year, the coming year, bring you exactly as much peace, hope, happiness, joy knowledge, wisdom, and enlightenment as you think you deserve!”
“…and then a little extra, just because.”
Are you trembling, cowering, and/or quaking? I should hope so. I haven’t given out curses this harsh since the Lemurians gave up on the hunter-gatherer life and mass-teleported to the Pleasure Planet of Zeebnar. Forgive me. It’s mean and it’s cruel. But that’s Villain Life for you.
Now treat your Dark Lord well and shower unto me gifts and appropriate respect, and I may—maybe, just maybe, if you’re very, very good—I’ll curse you with a rain of crocodiles instead, okay?
Might happen.
If you’re lucky.
Otherwise, you’ll just have to get out there and deal with the New Year as best you humanly can. My suggestions?
- Do what I say.
- Be a Villain.
- Don’t let anyone tell you what to do.
- And most of all, don’t fall for things which sound good, but which are inherently logically contradictory.
Happy New Year, you monsters!
<3,
The Dark Lord
