As Westerners say
With pleasing efficiency
I just lost my shit.
"How fucking perfect.
Just who the hell needs zombies
When you have the States?"
I tune out replies
Heard one Yank cheer mass murder
And you've heard them all.
Then an announcement
Aliens in the lobby
Time to be going.
I slam down my brief
And stand, middle fingers raised
No platform, bitches.
But now I'm alone
The UN infested, home
Cut off and dying.
I Skype my PM
(Defining embarrassment.)
"How many dead, sir?"
"It is grim reading
Zombie population's hit
Twenty percent plus."
"No sir, not zombies
Though Gods know, that's horrific."
But I meant the nuke."
A brief, deep silence.
"The nuke?" I frown, tap my mike.
"Yes sir. We've been nuked."
"We've not been nuked, no.
Have we? Hey! Maeda-san!
We been nuked at all?"
"No, Maeda-san
Is shaking his head. No nukes.
I'm sure we'd have heard."
"We just changed our mind,"
The US says when prodded.
"We sent out memos."
"Not to the UN!"
"Oh, right. Yeah... Ambassador...
Thingy. That guy. Oops."
So that didn't help
With my high blood pressure. Still
No nukes is good nukes.
But what do we do?
An international fleet
Strikes and bounces off.
(A hit new whale song
Climbs the charts: "Shell-casings keep
Falling on my head".)
So is that our choice?
Nuclear Armageddon
Or Big C rules Earth?
No! Cometh the hour
Cometh the space-borne death-ray
Which we've seen before.
This is the weapon
Last seen burning Tokyo.
So clearly we're thrilled.
'Cos let these monsters
Cap another monster, then
We'll blast them to bits.
Marshal all forces!
At long last, this day shall see
Tokyo avenged.
And then more good news.
We're zombie-free, at a mere
Three in ten souls dead!
So I return home
To face an oddly quiet
And spacious Japan.
It's not quiet long
Rumours rumble; incoming
Trilateral strike.
China and Russia
Our own allies plan to help
Lay waste to our coast.
Friends! It's remember
Tokyo! Not repeat it
On a larger scale!
But this is the State's
Planned plutonium party
It's them we must stop.
Pan-Asian huddle!
Brainstorm! No trick too dirty,
No wetwork too wet.
Jakarta steps up.
"No President, no nukes, right?"
"Let's Gone Girl POTUS."
"We snatch the bastard
And the nuclear football
Turns to a pumpkin."
"Put him on the fleet
Blockading R'lyeh" I add.
My smile bares my teeth.
"Tie his fate to ours.
A nuclear deterrent
I think is the term."
The snatch goes off fine
But alas, so do the nukes
We'd left it too late.
It was all for naught.
The truth? Some days you just can't
Get rid of a bomb.
Kidnappers come home
To find smashed, glowing ruins
And South Korea.
The US lap dogs
Put POTUS back in the air
Fast and with much blood.
Back in the ocean
Battle of R'lyeh: Round Two
Now with mushroom clouds.
But before the bomb
Fire from the sky, and somehow
Missiles from the deep.
(Incoming message
From outbound SIF armada:
"Target now in range.")
The star-cruiser fires
Searing light obliterates
Cthulhu's left thumb.
Half an ocean boils
Sashimi could well be scarce
For the next decade.
(A split second late
Our armada screams into
Super-heated steam.)
Dark, twisted rockets
Blossom next. Pale blue-green sparks
Swirl into fire-storms.
(With no way to see
Or hunt, our pilots head home
'Cept those ones flash-steamed.)
That's when the nukes hit.
White hot mushrooms in fire-fields
Blinding and killing.
I must say this much
The weapons do their job well.
Fall of Cthulhu!
Man victorious!
Earth's safe! Let's do the robot
Across the planet!
Japan, however?
We would soon learn that we were
Screwed across the board.
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