The wind blows cold thoughts of a winter yet to come. A train rumbles in the distance.
Purple sky bleeds to black.
As the long arms of darkness embrace the remnants of light lingering outside the window, a man with a white beard and round glasses says, very calmly, that the end is near. The end of the millennium, that is. His name is Dr. Charles Strain, a professor of religious studies at DePaul, and he is not alone in his knowledge that the millennium is approaching with increasing speed. In fact, you don't have to be a doctor of anything to know that 2000 and all the attendant apocalyptic hype is nigh. It is already 1998, only two years until 2000.