The tweet read, ‘Beware! On May 21 this year an earthquake will hit Tampa Florida and kill thousands! Dr. Poster Luckness ‘ I got my correspondence degree in nuclear engineering from Hamilton State College of California. I did an in depth study of natural disasters and I studied hard for 6 months to get my degree.
It was on Jan. 1st that I wrote that warning. It was tweeted with comments added like, ‘A real crackpot!’ ‘Earthquakes don’t hit Florida’ and ‘I’m not moving’. Some people left lip kisses in red for me, and sent me their pictures nude. I’m a serious man of science!
I got one e-mail about my tweet saying ‘I don’t know you Poster Luckness, but it should be a crime to scare people. The newspapers picked up your tweet and my parents, who are 89 and confined to electric scooters are horrified out of their wits! In the newspaper interview with you your claim is to be a prophet. Well do us all a favor and put a gun to your head and pull the trigger, and measure how much blood will spray out and where.’
Scientists said it was the weirdess thing ever heard because a hurricane swept over Tampa on the night of May 21st 2081 and somehow an underwater earthquake hit right after the hurricane. Since it hit at night and covered everything from Clearwater to Tampa well all together the deaths were estimated at 350,000. which was about the population of Tampa, but as one newspaper said in Orlando, ‘There are too many deaths to count.’
I of course wrote a book, everyone writes a book when what they predict happens.
Then there was a 2nd book, and at the Knoxville book signing a little man in shorts and a shirt with big bottom pockets, and he had stood in line with one he had purchased for $40. When it was his turn I said, “Who do you want me to write this to?”
“My parents you murderer, you killed them in Tampa by your prediction. I wrote you and you never wrote back! Edgar and Berry Winter!” He said as he pulled out a very black gun and I raised my arm and got shot in the arm.
Before I got shot the publisher told me, “Look Poster” My first name is something you hang up on walls. My mother was a nitwit.”
Poster you can’t write a 200 page book about one prediction. You got right the only thing you ever predicted, but now we have a team of experts and they will come up with 40 sure future happenings, and approximate dates.
You can fly around the world and be at various television stations right before it’s predicted to happen.”
“So what if I’m wrong?”
“Hell its how many books we sell that counts, not how many people drown or burn up.”
Finally before the publishing date there were 39 disasters foretold, and a even number were needed. The publisher said, “This is where you come in Poster. Dream up some horrible thing that will happen. Maybe something that will occur further off in time.”
“Sure,” I said, “let me dream a few nights on it.” I did fall to sleep thinking about what is going to happen that is bad? I did that very thing and saw a large piece of space junk falling toward Earth, big, round and horrible it was going directly toward Nashville and a small place next door called Lebanon Tennessee. It was going to do a direct hit on the Grand Ole Opry Building in Nashville. I saw 175,000 people breathing and next thing they were buried and crushed. Lots of people were burned up in all that happened. The date again was May 21st, but it was two years later than my most successful prediction. The publishers put a re-creation picture on the cover, photo-shopped, from an old movie called The Dead Scream. Pictures of body parts not on a torso and pools of blood and gore were on every page of the book.
I traveled around the country and made speeches, and like a preacher prayed for people to be delivered from tragedy. I bowed down with people from Vermont, Texas and Florida that they would escape the threats I had allowed my publishers to bring up.
I always said, “There is really nothing I can do about the Nashville thing, except ask people to just move away. That’s going to happen or I’m a monkey’s uncle!”
I was in Knoxville Tennessee at the University of Tennessee giving my book speech when Byron Winters said, “Write that you’ll see all the Winters in Hell –where your going Poster!”
Then I turned just a bit and he shot me in the upper arm, he was aiming at my heart.
The guy behind Byron grabbed his arm and when Bryon pulled the trigger again he shot a Catholic Nun between the eyes.
I was writing my 4th book when Byron’s trials were all over and I got the honor of pushing the button that set the electric chair and Byron on fire. The picture of the burning chair and Byron were on the next cover published of my future predictions. My space junk thing was off a bit, it happened but not till a few days later and to Knoxville not Nashville and it killed 100,000 of near about.
I guess I’m not perfect as a prophet. I still got the award for my 2nd book in New York City, it was the best non-fiction book of the year. The thing is I didn’t even write it, the publisher said it was Ghosting, and all the big shot writers do that. They let me win and the Ghosts wrote it.
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Ray Cates is a teacher and writer in Ocala Florida.
Other stories he has written are:
'May 21st and Ghosts' by Ray Cates 
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