On Sunday, January 18, 2004
the Earth lurched to a stop in mid-orbit. Cars swerved, pedestrians stumbled, housed crumbled. And with a second sudden jolt, the Earth resumed motion. A series of stops and starts continued over the next decade, until astro-physicists realized the Earth's erratic pauses in orbit fit a pattern of Morse code. "This is God. You must . . ." it read by 2012. All humanity waited anxiously for the completion of the dictate.