Horoscope Correctly Predicts Demise of Taurus

Wakka Wakka, Texas, June 30, 2019 -- Astrological aficionados born in the months of April and May were briefly shocked yesterday to read a chilling prediction posted in the Dallas/Ft.Worth Rancher's Almanac. The horoscope entry, which according to horoscope specialists was an unusually categorical example of the genre, read, simply, "Taurus: You die today."

Taurus – astrological sign (no longer applicable to the living): Image: Digital Sky LLC

The shock effect of the prediction proved altogether too transitory for its Taurus-signed readers as tragically it appears to have been correct.

"This is the first time that I can recall a horoscope prediction coming true with such striking definitiveness, scope, and above all punctuality," Telly Starr, a horoscopic cosmobiologist at the acclaimed Dallas Institute of Astrology, said. "According to scattered newspaper accounts almost exactly one twelfth of the world's population – 550 million people – dropped dead of unexplained causes yesterday. While we haven't been able to determine when exactly most of those people were born yet, except for those who were born yesterday, it seems to me to be more than just a coincidence that most of them were, in fact, Tauruses. Taurii. Whatever."

The horoscope writer who made the prediction, Jonathan Robert Crainzsny, said "I don't know what happened yesterday. Usually I just sit down for five minutes or so, dredge up some generic drivel about lifestyles and challenges and string my desperately gullible readers along with a few words of bland affirmation that'll keep them coming back for audiocasts, but this time I felt something more like a burst of cosmic guidance. The whole Zodiac spoke to me in all its glorious star-flocked puppet-mastery and said 'Taurus dies today'. So I had to write it. I didn't want all those people to die, but apparently the stars did. It's nothing personal. "

Astrological predictions are generally made on the supposition that the relative positions of numerous celestial objects as observed from various vantage points on Earth at the more or less approximate moment of a person's birth have a profound and continuing effect on virtually every aspect of that person's life. While generally accepted as hard science by many educators, researchers and former first ladies, the sphere of pseudoscientific prognostication has had its share of skeptics.

"We've suffered the scorn of the so-called rationalists and empiricists for decades – nay, centuries," Mr. Crainzsny said. "Now I suppose the one positive aspect of having 550 million people drop dead for no reason is that the survivors will begin paying more serious attention to the field. It's vindication at last. And for my potential readers, finally having proof that burning clumps of hydrogen billions of miles away are actively guiding the minutiae of their daily lives should help relieve them of some of that burden of personal responsibility that I know so many of us find so hard to shoulder."

Mr. Crainzsny said he plans to continue with his regular daily horoscope, available in shortened version on his web page for free, or in full version or via SMS direct to your telephone for a small token donation. He said, however, that for the time being horoscopes for Taurus will be omitted because there is currently "not much point when they're all dead."

"I'm hoping this tragic event will encourage more of my current and future visitors to sign up for the pay services," Mr. Crainzsny said, "as I've just lost over eight percent of my readership."

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor