rapture's coming

Subway station, 28th street. It is around three in the morning. A man in a battered-looking suit walks into the station and looks around. He is carrying a homemade sign, red lettering against a white board. The End is Near, predictably.

He squats down next to an overloaded shopping cart and a lumpy sleeping bag which, on inspection, turns out to contain a visibly drunk redhead.

"Evening, Sandra," says the street preacher.

Sandra groans and belches noisily. "Hello, Frank."

Frank scratches at the side of his nose tiredly. "Alcohol is the devil's snare," he says listlessly. "What will you do when, uh, judgment comes?"

Sandra shrugs. "See my sister again, I guess. You using my blankets, you can lay off about my whiskey."

Frank digs around in the shopping cart, coming up with a dirty blue sheet which he lays across some newspapers. "Rapture's coming," he mumbles. "You'll see."