The Four Horsepeople and the Wheel of Time wobble

We’re all so concerned about what the future holds – not just the long-term future (climate change: the Earth burns, everybody dies) but the short-term future (ANC implodes, South Africa collapses, you can’t get a decent coffee in Rosebank any more...). And now we’re looking at a new year, 2022, that could easily be a repeat, perhaps with small variations, of 2020 and 2021...

So I went looking for someone to predict that future. And, after a few misfires, I found a woman who could see at least something of what’s looming in 2022.

She’s named Fata Cattiva. I’m presuming that’s a nom de clairvoyance, because Fata runs a thriving business in seeing the future, predicting what’ll happen in the world and in your life, whether you’ll get your lover back, et cetera; also how to get that cash windfall, how to remove a curse that has been placed upon you, how to put a curse on someone, and so forth.

She’s a fully qualified sangoma, inyanga, reiki healer, Tarot decipherer, Vedic astrologer, reader of the runes and a druidess – and she has the fancy furry outfits to prove it. She draws on multiple traditions, she says, in order to mobilise all the necessary cosmic forces to see to your personal desires and needs.

At present, she’s doing a lot of shamanic work with The Wheel of Time matrix – the hit TV series has revealed certain things to her, and although she’s not going with the Dragon Reborn stuff (that’s a few thousand years out of date), she has a whole lot of new fateful information to pass on.

Okay.

So off I went to Fata’s place of residence and work – we’re all working remotely now, clairvoyants especially. She says she can claim a tax rebate on the area of her home that she uses for her work, though that is in fact all of her home, because her powers extend to the whole property. Actually, she confided to me, she’d like to claim a tax rebate on the whole cosmos, because the whole cosmos is her workplace, but SARS doesn’t acknowledge the cosmos yet.

Enough of tax matters. We leave that to SARS’s mystic department, though some claim that’s a rogue unit. Apparently the International Harry Potter Institute is looking into its credentials. In the meantime, we have Fata’s look into our immediate future.

I went with specific questions, but Fata said she wasn’t doing questions that day. (This was 1 January, and most people were braaiing without a thought for the future.) No, she just went into a prophetic trance and began to speak in the voice of her angel-demon-guide, known as Urizen, to tell me what lay beyond the time urizen … I mean horizon.

“Oooh, aaahhh, aaahh...” That’s Fata going into a trance. It took a while. Apparently she needs some strong drink to get into that trance state – a double cane and Coke, actually.

So there were a few more ooohhs and aahhhs, some groaning, some writhing about on the floor (a special carpet woven with a representation of the key constellations), some more glugging from the cane and Coke, and we were away.

“I see … I see … come on, Urizen, what do we see?”

Her voice changed into a deep rumbling basso profundo.

“It is I, Urizen, and I see...”

“Yes,” I said anxiously, “what do you see, Urizen?”

“Quiet,” said Fata. “Don’t interrupt.” “Sorry,” I said, biting my tongue. That was painful.

“I see, I see... What do I see?”

The basso profundo got even deeper and louder. The needle showing the recording function on my phone was jumping into the red, but I dared not adjust it.

“I see four horsemen!”

(Ah, I thought: the Book of Revelations was right!)

“Er, actually, I should say four horsepeople … “They’re galloping around the wasteland, seeking whom they may devour … So to speak. Galloping, gambolling...”

(I wanted to ask who they were, the four horsepeople – riding the four horses of the apocalypse, presumably – but it was as though Fata-Urizen could read my mind and she/he went on in that booming voice.)

“Okay, the one at the back – yes, on the brown horse, he’s going slowly … He’s an old man … He’s going round and round in circles, laughing to himself … Chuckling … He goes ‘He he he…’”

(Right, I thought, we know who that is.) “And then there’s another, near the back… Looks like he’s riding a donkey, actually … it isn’t entirely clear … There’s a lot of fog here, or maybe it’s smoke. Dark, black smoke.”

(Are we still, I wondered, in the world of The Wheel of Time? Sounds a bit more like the End of Time, as in Loki, the Marvel Universe™ spinoff series … But, again, Urizen-Fata read my mind.)

“All time is present in Time Present!” cried Urizen, sounding like a bit more of a baritone for a moment. “From the End of Time, I see all time … But especially the next year or so that you asked about.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“That old guy on the old donkey … He’s also going round and round… And he’s shouting ‘Coal! Coal! Burn! Burn!’”

(Must be Uncle Gweezy, I thought.)

“He’s yelling: ‘Green transition? My gouty foot! We got no green here! Just red! And black! Black smoke, oily black smoke! Let the world burn!”

(Oh dear, I thought. But I didn’t want to say anything.)

“And there are another two horsepeople,” said Urizen. “And they’re going mad, going wild … The one on the black horse is galloping towards us … and she, yes, it’s a she – she has the biggest, wildest hair in South African history! And bright pink gloves!”

(Gosh, I thought, pink gloves? What could that mean? Is this the female version of The Phantom of the Opera?)

“The biggest! The wildest! More hair than a lead character in The Lord of the Rings! And that’s without the beard!”

(Hang on, are we changing horses or horsepeople in midstream here? Are we switching fantasies? I thought this was a series … But, again, Urizen read my mind.)

“All fantasy movies and series are present in the mind of Urizen! But especially trilogies and eight-episode series! From the vantage point of the End of Time, I see all!”

(Great, I thought. We’ll be in the DC universe next.)

“And she’s riding, and riding, and fire cometh from her great sword, which she holdeth in her pink-gloved hands! She crieth, ‘F*ck the C*nstit*tion! F*ck the r*le of l*w!’ She’s raising funds from dodgy businesspeople and tenderpreneurs! And taxi mafia bosses! Not to mention charismatic preachers and funeral-parlour moguls! Someone has to pay the MK veterans! The presidential bid of the One with Enormous Hair and Pink Gloves will be not be cheap!”

(I started doing some maths, based on the projected figures of the CR22 campaign, but Urizen was booming along.)

“And there’s another horse – a white horse! Could it be the plague? The white horse is ridden by someone with many names … except they are all the same name. I’m getting an M … and another M … Moo … Moegoe … Mogoeng Mogoeng Mogoeng…”

(The world seemed filled with echoes going “Mogoeng, Mogoeng, Mogoeng …” I felt a shiver down my spine.)

“He rideth the white horse, and he shouteth! He curseth the 666, the Mark of the Beast, that shall infiltrate the very DNA of each person and inscribe them with the devil’s mark, never mind a hefty bill from your neighbourhood G5 provider!”

Urizen’s voice grew louder:

“He cometh like a prophet! [Oh dear, is my job at stake?] But he cometh, and he cometh! He is unstoppable! He sweepeth all opposition aside! He is the new Lord of All! And the people shall pick up their hoes and pangas, and they shall follow him to the ends of the Earth! Or at least to the ends of the landmass … Except he may soon invade Zimbabwe! And Botswana! And he shall preach the Gospel of the Anti-666 and he shall rule – forever!”

“Wait, wait,” I stammered, terrified. “I don’t understand. Is all this going to happen in 2022? The pink gloves I get, and the others, but Mogoeng? He’s a retired judge. How can he –?”

But Fata had fainted. And Urizen was silent.

Shaun de Waal is a writer and editor.