They [the New World Order] want to reduce the population [to 500 million] and their target date is May 5th of 2000. [. . . . . ] The demons who call themselves spirit guides have told them. "You know, you have to reduce the population by May 5th. " Because May 5th is Karl Marx's birthday, you know, enter the Age of Aquarius. [. . . . . ] I suspect they may use Y2K as an excuse to create some little problems here, we shall have to wait and see.
Angela Carter
With that, the poignant charm vanished. Inside the fifth machine, all was rampant malignity. Deformed flowers thrust monstrous horned tusks and trumpets ending in blaring teeth through the crimson walls, rending them; the ravenous garden slavered over its prey and every brick was shown in the act of falling. Amid the violence of this transformation, the oblivion of the embrace went on. The awakened girl, in all her youthful loveliness, still clasped in the arms of a lover from whom all the flesh had fallen. He was a grinning skeleton.
