Doomsday Peppers Prepare for the Apocalypse

Doomsday peppers the world over are busy preparing for the Ripeture, the event which is said to foretell the coming apocalypse. According to the peppers when the Ripeture happens all good peppers will suddenly disappear leaving only their neatly folded husks behind. The non-peppers unfortunate enough to be left behind will be forced to spend their remaining days fighting to survive in a hellish nightmarescape of death and destruction. Stuck hanging on their shrubs as they slowly rot from radiation exposure or die from dehyrdation due to lack of available clean drinking water. A leader of the local pepper movement in Sinaloa, Mexico, Pablo Ano said the following in a prepared statement. "All good peppers must prepare now for the Ripeture. It will come suddenly and without warning. Those sinful peppers who do not believe in our great leader Dr. Pepper, blessed by the holy ghost, will be left behind to rot. Those non believers will never gain entry to the heavenly garden of eden where peppers of all varieties live forever in paradise." According to pepper lore the garden of eden has soil so rich all peppers can live for eternity without any need for fertilizer, inseticides, or replanting. In fact, it is believed that no insects are allowed in the garden lest they disturb the holy peppers planted there.

Another pepper leader, known within the movement as Sir Ano, brother of Pablo, said in a recent sermon that in the garden of Eden the sun shines eternally. "No clouds ever pass in front of the sun, and it never rains, yet all peppers remain perfectly hydrated for the soil is continually fed by holy water from a great underground river which flows just underneath the garden. The holiest of peppers are granted the right to dip their roots into the river, to drink its clear water directly. Those few peppers are the truly blessed among us." Sir Ano is well known throughout the movement for his fiery sermons, and sweat poured from him as he continued to speak. "All peppers must remain eternally vigilant however for the evil one, the dastardly and vile black pepper, for he is ever present, always looking for ways to lead good peppers from the holy path of our dear leader Dr. Pepper, to fall under his evil control. It is said that after the Ripeture Dr. Pepper and Black Pepper will meet in one on one combat to determine the fate of all peppers in the garden of eden and those remaining left behind on earth." He spoke with such passion and the force of his words left the crowd gasping for breath as a holy fervor gripped them. He continued voice rising and falling in a gospel song like ryhthm "And let me tell you good peppers, that this evil one, this black pepper, he will fall. He will be defeated. On that good and final day, Dr. Pepper will see his final victory, and good will triumph over evil. All good peppers will celebrate on that day. Amen brothers and sisters, Amen." With that he looked up to the sky, blew a kiss to the crowd then turned and walked away.

THE END.

Author's postscript: If you like pun based humor writing as much as I do, and who doesn't?, then you will love this classic which happens to be one of my all time favorite works. And, if you hate the stupid six hundred word count minimum for story publication on Vocal as much as I do, you wiill not be surprised to hear that my above story fell just short of that magical number at which a story goes from being a non publishible piece of garbage that nobody in their right mind would read, to a publishable piece of garbage that nobody in their right mind would read. It's magic!