Enola Gay

     At first glance, the scene looks peaceful: a placid pond shimmering in a verdant meadow. But on closer inspection you can see that the air is swarming, the water teeming with acts of violence. The general squats on his round flat dais, croaking orders into the spiky microphone of a floating blossom. All around, segmented biplanes buzz on transparent wings. Dive-bombing damselflies are picked off one by one by a snipe hidden in the reeds. Mosquito larvae hang suspended just beneath the surface, wriggling with impatience, eager to unsheathe their bayonets and join the fray. In the depths far below them, an armored submersible lurks in the thick gloom, waiting to rise from below to snatch another bobbing frigate from the duckling armada. The pacifist fish hope that if they remain motionless they will evade the piercing shell of the egret torpedo. Fascinated by the skirmish, you lean forward and slip on the muddy embankment. The explosion of your body smacking the water causes a brief cease-fire, as the battalions scramble to escape the resulting tidal wave that pummels the shore, casting the water striders into the grass and flooding the muskrats from their trenches. Sadly, the impact is not enough to end the battle for domination of this tiny body of water, this strategically useless puddle, and the tiny creatures are soon back at work, doing their best to annihilate one another here in these wetlands of mass destruction.