The Four wait on the banks of the Euphrates, watching the Clock of Heaven count down. Their sweating horses nicker and fidget, as always. The immense machine is suspended over the waters in front of the horrific quartet, gleaming in the high, hot sun.

Its great brass gears rotate slowly, regulated by a huge escapement that rocks back and forth, back and forth as it has done for millennia. When the gears mark their ultimate progress–very soon, now, very soon–the Riders will be sent forth, and one-third of humanity will die.

All of which is patently specious, as any thinking person can recognize.

Realistically, those brass gear teeth would have worn away to nothing over centuries of continual churning. Yet it isn’t simply a question of the gears themselves, but more so of their axle bearings. Did someone provide grease to keep them from seizing and binding? No. Axle bearings need frequent lubrication, and even with that they don’t last forever. That’s a simple fact. And what of the pendulum and its counterweights that supply power to the Clock? No one reactivated those. Heck, the writer hadn’t even mentioned them up to this point. Continue Reading