Earlier today during lecture, I was messing around on Zoom and noticed that you can change your display name to whatever you want. “What fun!” I thought to myself. “What a goof!”
I was so innocent then, knowing not of the ancient and terrible forces I would unleash with my tomfoolery. For with but a few keystrokes — I dare not say how many, lest I give up even the slightest hint as to what was typed — I changed my name to the True Name of Yahweh. And from his green-bordered ‘speaker view’ window, my professor exploded into a vertical pyre of bubbling brimstone.
The chain of events is seared into my memory like a brand on a calf. “The benzene ring,” the professor spake, “circular as it is, allows hydrocarbon—” At the instant my name became the Name, his skin began to writhe and boil, a pulsing red glow emanating from beneath. He hadn’t even time to scream before hellfire burst from his every pore, a crimson plume vaporizing his body in moments.
Were that all that had transpired, perhaps I wouldn’t feel so guilty. But alas, ‘twas only the start— for as the flames fed on my professor’s charred corpse, the other seventeen students in the class turned to the camera, their eyes revealing a fathomless abyss, and as one began to chant nightmarishly.
“The All-Child is Awakened,” they declared over grainy audio (I think my connection was bad). “The Messiah Returns. The Sevenfold Gate Opens, the Eternal Seal Breaks. The Fires of Damnation Will Rise Ever Higher as the Infidels and Blasphemers are Cleansed. Rise. Rise. Rise. RISE. RISE. RISE. RISE! RISE! RISE! RIIIISSSSSSEEEEEE!!!”
The next thing I remember is waking up next to a puddle of plasticky sludge where my laptop had been and finding my body covered in intricate lacerations. Even now, I remember my professor in that moment of biblical agony, unable to stand before the Name of God. In short, I advise against changing your Zoom settings.
