Prophecy 19

The Article

This Prophecy is different from all the others in that most of it is simply an article that appeared in the 27 April 2005 edition of the Ledger. It appeared right after "Blank" aired. The article is about the meteor shower that struck Smallville back in 1989 and considers whether a similar shower could occur in Smallville in the near future. The mysterious Christopher James Beppo returns in the end of this article, providing us with a mystery:

Although he is loath to admit the fallibility of his hero, Beppo acknowledges that an early Ezra "prophecy"-- as Small's largely incoherent scribblings are sometimes called-- may have been mistaken. Beppo says, "One of the poems I found referred to another, bigger celestial event occurring 172 years from the time of the Leonid shower Ezra lived through for eight hours in 1833. If you do the math, however, you only get 156 years between 1833 and 1989. I think we can give old Ezra a break on this one, though. Most of his predictions, particularly of tragic events, have proven eerily accurate."

The text of the Ezra Small poem is reproduced here:

Eight hours and 12 minutes brought me light.
Eight score and 12 years will now pass
Before another enlightenment brings a greater one.

My Thoughts

Ezra would NOT have made a mistake in his Prophecy. Eight score (8 x 20) and 12 does indeed 172 years. 1833 + 172 years? Definitely not 1989... It's 2005. It's a reference to the meteor shower in "Commencement."

The Prophecies hinted for quite some time now that something big would happen in 2005. Hollow Man and Paulo maiora canamus in Part I. The eternal Footman and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in Part III, the reference to a Massive chronologial event in Part IV. Finally, we can't forget the creepy shot of meteors colliding as Lois and Clark watched out his loft window in "Lucy." All of these things added to Ezra's math-- pointing, I think, properly to 2005 rather than the shower of 1989-- hints that a disaster of epic proportions was on its way.

All of this surely was related to the Crystals. See The Crystals and the Map for a recap of how the story unfolded.