An essay on political fantasy
The delicate balance in the world is again in danger. This time, the root cause was not politicians but burghers of the French city of Calais (not to be confused with those depicted by great Rodin). A general assembly there resolved to restore the political borders of the Hundred Years’ War and ask Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain to place her loyal, albeit former, subjects under her protection. Still waiting for an answer, the burghers of Calais decided not to waste time and began building a causeway from Calais to the nearest part of Britain. This part turned out to be a ten square-meter rocky island sticking out of the English Channel (known as La Manche in France).
The causeway construction is now in full swing: all the available municipal and privately-owned equipment — trucks, bulldozers, passenger ferries, airplanes, buses, cars, fishing boats, baby carriages, wheelchairs, shovels, and water trucks — has been thrown in. The city seems to have come back to the times of the Revolution, for it is full of overall enthusiasm and slogans, such as “To the dike, citizens!” Almost all — young and old, teens and children — chose to stand under the colors of the dike-builders.
It is difficult and dangerous to work there because high waves and gale-force winds keep ruining the already-built levee and pushing the expensive equipment and building materials into the foaming brine. One has to switch one’s attention to the rescue operations, baling hundreds of volunteers out of the icy water. Enthusiasm does not wane, however, thanks, above all, to the leader of this unprecedented campaign. He went on record for swearing to stay awake and hungry until the causeway linked Calais with the “historical homeland,” that is, the aforesaid rock. He is esteemed and feared. Word has it that, before becoming a despotic and eloquent leader of his compatriots, he rubbed shoulders with big league criminals.
The English Channel events did not remain unnoticed. The first to get worried was, of course, Britain: worried very much. A secret powwow of the government and the military decided to move a sizable chunk of the country’s military potential to the strait’s shore, draft the reservists and begin extensive maneuvers, involving the air force, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and small arms, as well as to focus all the spy satellites on the dangerous rock (totally unknown before). The French government received an appropriate note which most categorically denied the possibility of restoring the XIV-XV century border. Meanwhile, common Britons began to stock up on foodstuffs, such as cereals, flour, butter, sugar, beets, and cabbages.
France pretended to be unaware of the initiatives of Calais and “a certain local patriot” who should apparently be taken care of by the police. Yet, watching the British military machine go into motion, the French had to make some changes in their own defense system, thus confirming the Britons’ worst suspicions.
All this very soon became, due to media exaggeration, a matter of grand international politics. Now some analysts compare the rock story to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, which touched off World War I. Others turned to antiquity and, considering the English Channel a present-day Rubicon, augur the worst, the complete downfall of Western democracy. Most journalists are putting all the flak, however, on Muslim terrorists (Al-Qaeda et al.) and trying to persuade the world that the terrorists are laying the causeway to the British rock to be able to traffic in contraband weapons and drugs.
As to the United States, it has again resorted to preventive measures and begun to rapidly airlift a part of its military contingent from the Middle East to the West, an area code-named the Rock. To this end, Congress appropriated several tens of billion dollars more at the president’s discretionary disposal.
Meanwhile, the burghers of Calais continue to bitterly fight the elements. The coveted rock comes up at a stone’s throw distance, only to vanish again in the fog of Albion. The workers are cold, soaked, and uncomfortable; they experience shortage of potable water and food, and are getting sick in the increasing numbers. But this is an inevitable sacrifice for the enlargement of a Russia Great and Indivisible.
