Back in 1988 Cathy Underhill and I crossed the Yucatan Peninsula from Belize to the ancient ruins of Tikal or perhaps Yax Mutal by the original inhabitants. The Mayan city rose from the jungle in 200BC. Its temples and pyramids were unrivaled until Siyah K’ak or ‘the Fire Born’ led Teotihuacan troops to overthrow the Mayan dynastic ruler with the assistance of the Tikal elite. The city flourished for centuries before the inhabitants fled to avoid the constant wars. Time ended for Tikal and other great cities returned to the jungle, however the Mayan were great astrological mathematicians and back in 2011 present-day doomsday declared that they deciphered the pyramid’s arcane glyphs and discovered that the world was destined to end on December 21, 2012, the final day of the Thirteen Baktun cycle when the planet Niburu crashed into Earth.

December 21, 2012 was a Friday. Millions of Egyptian protested against legally-elected President Morsi, a freezing cold spell took its toll in the Ukraine, and Barack Obama replaced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with John Kerry, but Niburu was a no-show.

End of show and not the Earth?

Not so quick, because end-of-the-world proponents have calculated that the Gregorian Calendar was eight years off the mark and Niburu will destroy this planet on June 21, 2020.

Nine days from now.

Stumped by Mayan calculations no one has announced the exact hour of our doom and star-gazers across the globe peering into telescopes have yet to spot Niburu, but I have already seen The End on Broad Channel across from Rockaway and was happy to see the next day as I will be on June 22, 2020.