--- Mabel Jeminee ---

Once upon a time, there was a nation called America. It was the best, and biggest and greatest that was ever seen and ever would be seen. Except for the government. And for taxes. And for them universities which taught our kids to be layabouts and socialists.

But anyway, we were special. That’s since we had the loudest cars, and we invented all the best things: like hot dogs with mustard, and electronic bankin’ and daytime television.

But most of all, we didn’t live scared. We didn’t live hungry. And none of us was satisfied by the thought we couldn’t make the world better, s’long as we just cared a little harder, or worked a bit tougher, or loved a little smarter. I know we weren’t perfect, but that’s all true no matter what Ms Greene says, alright?

I guess there was a bunch of other countries too, but no body cares about them. I guess Korea because of Seung-Hee. An’ India on behalf and in respect of Rahit. Or Bangladesh, whichever one he’s from. And then I had a cousin who did missionary in the Côte D’Ivoire. And it’s true you haven’t lived unless you’ve been to Baja, so Mexico counts. Oh! And I did love the royal family, so maybe I’ll count in England too –

But irremagardless, a day came when the Devil came to covet the happiness of the Earth. He was spittin’ mad, they say – because he’d been promised a war at the end of days between all of Good and all of Evil. And that reckonin’ had been deferred and delayed for so many times and for so many thousand years, he finally just got fed up and started early.

Of all the generals of the Underworld which knelt to that prince of Darkness, the fiend most suited for war was (aside from, you know, the war tree) the thunder serpent: La Longue. There was no other servant Satan trusted more to take on Uncle Sam, mighty as we were.

They said that La Longue was three hunnerd foot long. They say that his scales were all made of brass and precious turquoise, and further that his feathers were strong and sharp enough to be used as knives. That’s true by the way. We used to have one, it just couldn’t last long under Her Lady’s grace, that’s all.

Any soul with eyes could see that the serpent was a dragon: a real one from out of legend, and the same kind that Lance-a-lot and George and Sigurd ‘n Marduk’d done in. That is to say: the beast was luggin’ a grudge some count of ages in the makin’, and was fit to make his revenge on mankind for the prunin’ of his family tree. But if you think those tales are puff and fancy, know I seen him myself on the TV, so I can tell you it’s true.

That dragon had claws like you would not believe. His teeth? They were huge and flat like a camel’s (which was awful and unexpected). His palace was made from cream stone and the rarest o’ blue jade, a half gross, great-gross cube-cubits in size. His pow’r was such that he could shrink the whole of it down to the size of a melon an’ fit it inside of his gullet. But he could also spit it up, then minify his-self in just the same way. Thus and so, he’d reign o’er his court as the size of a hog-snake.

We were all watching. All of us, glued to our screens n’ speakers, n’ frightful that if we turned away for even a moment, the world might end in the interim. La Longue crawled up the boot-laces of Louisiana, spewin’ out a pestilence of the lesser ’Vaders into the wetlands as he went. He stopped to chomp on Vicksburg; on Greenville. He threaded up between Arkansas an’ Mississippi proper, and the fish of the waters wriggled out from his shadow and into the floodplains. They took to the open air, twistin’ into the shape of the lungwurm beasts which’re the scourge of those lands still.

He arced ‘cross the sky of Memphis, his Opinion forkin’ in the razor-sharp, broken-glass gold which was, and was not lightnin’. The ash of that fire could be tasted on the wind, all the way to the safe-zones of the Appalachians. We trembled in knowin’ that the evacuations had been so incomplete.

Fear was our companion in the day, an’ despair was our bosom-friend which clung to us in the night. The passing of the spring months stripped our pride and our hope. The Dirge bleached the red of the stripes, and stole the shine from the stars, such that Old Glory itself was lookin’ to become the flag of surrender.

And there on the map, the city of St Louis sat – still in the dragon’s way.

She was not emptied, no it was the opposite. The mayor of that fine town had stood his ground and made his metropolis a shelter. Under his watch, the borderland folk of Missouri-Illinois had built a breadbasket. They’d been a shield against starvation and defense against want. The man stood up astride his podium, and struck his gavel, and declared to the world that he would never cede his home to the enemy.

So, we passed into the month of May. The die was cast, and the stage was set for tragedy. The armed militias of Chicago, of Indianapolis, and of Kansas City: well they defied orders and marched for the river. But as they pitched up their fortifications, we all knew they’d never be enough.

Hell’s kettle boiled up a black cloud that day, and it unfurled o’er the sky like a shroud. Thunder’s indigestion was the percussion of his approach. That river heaved, and disgorged in a churnin’ spray: such that the dragon curled out like a tapeworm into the clear air. Oh! We knew what was comin’ and we did quake an’ pray.

Crash! Went his intention. Flash! Blazed his flavor. His feathers rang like church bells against his scales, a thousand sutras streamed from him on silk flags from between the two, and his voice called out curses in the tongues (I assume) of the damned.

What I’m sayin’ was, that lizard was frightful.

It was at that moment, just as we all thought hope was lost – when we heard that bright rip roarin’ saw action: gas operatin’, drum fed, piston chamberin’, 5.56 millimeter rat-a-tat-tat of –

“Be not afraid, for I come brought the ruckus.” WHOO-WEE.

Obviously, she didn’t say none of that. What I meant by that metaphorical was: ain’t none of us never heard such a symphony of the firearm before. And La Longue: for the first time looked like he was takin’ the sting of lead like the rules said he ought to do. Oh! He roared and spiraled, and circled too. The waters boiled with his progeny, and they spilt over the ramparts of the riverbank to maraud and siege and ruin. His mouth opened up, and a battalion of his varmints spewed out into the streets in a glittery horde.

Proper war was waged along the avenues and between the high-rises. Concrete broke along with glass and showered down below. Folks ran and screamed, and fought where they could. But all the while, somethin’ this time just didn’t feel like we was losin’.

Now obviously, it’s your Auntie Vaunda alone of us who’s seen our Lady in the flesh. I only was blessed enough to’ve saw her on video. But there she appeared, under the hoop of the Gateway Arch an’ makin’ her stand. The steel of the monument above her was rustin’ up by then, a ruddy curve at the riverbank and ‘gainst the skyline.

About her all ‘round, at hand and laid ready, were the full blessings and armaments which are the inheritance of the Freeholds of the middle West. There was rifles both short and long, slug-throwers and automatics, revolvers and repeaters, and I’m ninety percent sure there was a rocket there somewhere too. I even did see, and I’ll swear to it, our own benediction: which is the Mister’s Fortitude. I saw it in her hands as she took aim and fired at heaven, like she could fight the moon itself and win.

Fire and smoke mixed up with the spatter of rain. The ‘lectric mixed with true thunder as the foe tried to turn his Opinion towards her undoin’. His minionry surely ran amok and foul in his service. But his side of the Argument was too loud, too general, and hers was a narrow Thesis set against his point of view.

I cannot know how to describe her as she appeared to me. I only know that she precedes us; our nation, our people, our kind. Her hair was shorn close-cropped, and her jaw was squared just to the limit of femininity. Her flannel shirt was made from the fleece won by Jason of the Argonauts, and gifted her by the filicide sorceress Medea. Her gloves were made from rakshasa skin, and her satchel was stitched from the leather of a pterodactyl. Her spurs were gold an’ silver from the burial mound of the highest princess of the Avars, and her side knife once belonged to both Boudicca an’ Annie Oakley.

She was Diana of the Hundred Arms, the Thousand-Gun Lady, the Patron Saint of Ordinance. She was the indigene of every land since Pangaea, and she unloaded holy hell ‘till her powder-smoke dwarfed even the Fourth of July. She was everywhere she needed to be, all at once and even when it wasn’t possible.

They did battle there for eighteen hours until the both of them fell. La Longue dropped from the clouds in a terrible crash. Our lady knelt down with a smile and shut her eyes for good. They’d done slewn each other, just like in the stories, and that was it.

But though she was our salvation, the Lady’s sacrifice came with a cost all its own. For you see, it was her authority over this world which had tamed the savage places, an’ her dominion that’d subjugated the wild’s creatures. On that day, her pow’r was ended, and when it did all the collars and leashes of the Earth were undone. A great rebellion rose up, as all the hooves and wings and claws of the domesticated animal kingdom broke free from the will of men.

The Second Calamity was done wrought upon us. On our farms, an’ in our homes, our friends and flocks turned traitor, practically overnight. And among all of ‘em, there was no creature whose betrayal cut us deeper, nor more bloody, than dog.

In such a way we saw it; so we say it was. So shall it be ‘till the day what’s done’s been unwritten, and the Twelve are returned to us in Glory. Everything that’s hurt’ll be mended, an' what’s lost’ll be recovered. ‘Cept all’ll be better and brighter, and this time she'll walk with and among us, Amen.