GOG & MAGOG

[E. M. Edwards]

The City with its diamond encrusted teeth, chews and grinds its way through London streets empty of everything but bunting.

On the banks of the Thames the lowly gather, wave their caps, fighting half-heartedly for position, aware of the eyes of their betters.

Rumours of the return of Captain Nemo coupled with multiple sightings of his famed ship Nautilus, have royal flotilla worried. 

Banner proclaiming "NEMO REMEMBERS" appears on the roof of the Houses of Parliament. Depth charges are dropped in the Thames as a precaution. 

A white bull is sacrificed on Fleet Street while a dozen pigeons are released and carefully observed flying about Cleopatra's Needle. 

A homeless man is heard to remark: "Over the span of immemorial time and with sufficient familiarity, the tongue comes to love the boot which it shines."

He is drawn and quartered by the Household Guard on the steps of St. Paul's and his entrails used for scrying.

A perfect liver predicts a 1,000 year reign for the House of Windsor. Ten youths from Lambeth are given to the pyre in thanksgiving. 

To show his Fitness to Serve, the newly re-elected mayor of London carries his deposed rival's head in a wicker basket durning a procession of the City.

Burgomasters of Morgan Stanley and envoys from the Bank of England throw bundles of notes, donate a pipe of tawny port for slaking the thirst of the bearskin hatted berserks who serve as the mayor's guard.

"Our Kingdom has come and we stand outside it, the gates locked, watching it rain, waving a small flag." Inside they eat roast pork and sturgeon, washed down with bottles of Krug.

Diamonds the size of corgis fall inexorably from high orbit, leaving flaming trails as they puncture through rooftops in Chelsea and cause a blaze in West Kensington.

The Queen selects a hundred prisoners to hang from gibbets along the river banks. Bunting and bodies decorate the victorian lamp posts in the midst of a thin drizzle.

A royal pardon is granted to the rest of the prisoners in Belmarsh. Released, they are dressed up as human hobby horses and given the Freedom of the City. 

On fluttering wings, a storm of giant alien locusts descend on Jubilee London. First to be invested is Green Park, onlookers scatter.

A squirrel with three heads is sighted by a frightened Chinese tourist in Hyde Park. Swans on the Serpentine, show teeth. The Met cordon off the area.

Bone-fires lit in front of the Tower, and the giants Gog and Magog are produced in time to march down the Embankment. Crowd uneasy, as their chains creak. 

A strange beast is seen floundering near the Traitors' Gate. On the royal barge the crown prince jumps up, harpoon in hand, a modern Starbuck.

"Ra save the Queen from the fangs of Apep!" He cries and lets loose his weapon.

The Thames becomes a serpent. On its back, tiny people in tiny ships are tossed. Beyond the Isle of Dogs, its mouth yawns wide. 

O England, what rough monarch, one's hour come at last, floats towards the estuary of the Thames?