NEW ROME- Hieronymus Petrarch, The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, appeared at the Western Gate early in the evening on Thursday, apologizing profusely for being late as he worked his way through a crowd of curious onlookers and members of the press. His arrival was unexpected as it came some ten years after his colleagues War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death waged a terrible tribulation upon the face of the Earth in the Rapture of AD 2012, popularly referred to as “The Great Scourging”. He cited scheduling conflicts for the delay.
Mr. Petrarch, who was on foot when he entered the city from the ruined outskirts, was greeted with skepticism and occasional derision by some of the bystanders, who taunted him with shouts of “Where’s your horse, Mr. Horseman? Leave it in your other pants?” He ignored the jeers; pausing only once to quietly remark “Do you know how hard it is to find a horse these days? I don’t think I could find a dog that wasn’t plagued by devils or oozing putrescence.”
Mr. Petrarch shielded himself from cameras as he made his way downtown to a shabby hotel where he proceeded to shut himself in his room, ignoring telephone calls and requests for interviews, as well as a maid’s request that he let her bring in fresh towels. A crowd had gathered in the streets below chanting his name and asking for autographs, but he refused to reappear until late in the morning, when local officials acquiesced to his demands that they would serve lunch at his press conference.
At the crowded civic auditorium, Mr. Petrarch, clothed in robes of heavy damask and wearing orthopedic sandals, sat at the head of a large table as he fielded questions from the audience. The most pressing question on the floor was to explain the lack of his presence in the theological literature, in particular the New Testament Book of Revelations, wherein the other four Horsemen were most notably mentioned. “Well,” he said, “the position didn’t get created until relatively late, sometime in the ninth century, I think. There was something about filling minority quotas in personnel.” Mr. Petrarch is of Slavic descent.
When a reporter asked if he had held the position since its inception, Mr. Petrarch chuckled quietly and said that “No, I’m not that old, little missy”, but that he had inherited the position from his father. In fact, he had only just found out about his birthright a few months before the Rapture, when his father, lying on his deathbed, told Hieronymus of his destiny. “There was this ancient scroll made of unborn lamb skin on the wall in my dad’s den that was supposed to be a family heirloom, but I had never bothered to read it. I always thought it was a chili recipe.”
Mr. Petrarch related how he had been excited about his new post and meeting new people at work, but his eagerness and enthusiasm soon waned as he began to get settled into his position. He said that the bellicose nature and frequent partying of the other four Horsemen hurt his performance and led him to feel increasingly marginalized. “Man, they just wouldn’t let up, you know? I would try to get my paperwork done, but they would just sit around drinking whiskey and burning furniture and doing lines of coke on the copy machine. It was really distracting, especially all the blood lettings.” He went on to say that despite his efforts to fit in with the other Horsemen, he was treated with contempt and often ridiculed for not being able to keep up with their drinking, and that in official memoranda they frequently referred to him as “gay”.
When asked what his exact role in the organization was, Mr. Petrarch appeared uncomfortable and attempted to change the subject, but under pressure from the crowd, he revealed that he was the Horseman of “Prosaic Unpleasantness”. A hush filled the room as looks of confusion appeared on nearly every face. Mr. Petrarch sighed heavily and said: “Look, I know as much about it as you guys, okay? They kind of glossed over it in training. I don’t even know what ‘prosaic’ means. Isn’t that some kind of fancy tile work? I usually just say that I’m the Horseman of Doom. It makes my life a lot easier.”
The final question that Mr. Petrarch responded to before heading off to a tea social with the Rotary Club Ladies’ Auxiliary dealt with his current visit, and his plans for the remainder of the human race. “Well, my work has pretty much been done for me by those other guys, so, I don’t know, I might settle down a little, see the town. I already signed up for some acting classes, and I hear there’s a lively dating scene” he said, pointing both index fingers and adding “so watch out, ladies”.
“Just because I missed out on some business doesn’t mean I have to write off the whole trip.”