NEW WORLD ORDER
ryan griffith
In Bar Liverpool, I meet a Dane drinking Baltika and doing shots of Sambuca. You are American, he says. I will draw you my one picture. He tears the notebook from my hands and scrawls a cartoon elephant. Under the elephant he writes, Intelligence is knowing your own limitations.
He tosses back his Sambuca and flicks a match. With the match he lights the inside of his mouth on fire and blows a smoky zero.
The zero floating between us, he says, My friend, I’m sorry to tell you this, but America is over.
He points at me with the burning eye of his cigarette.
Europe is moving closer to Russia now. It’s a new world order coming, and the U.S. is no longer needed.
Look at Denmark, he says. We owned Scandinavia. Sweden, Norway, even Germany. And now? Hans Christian Anderson and Hamlet. That’s all people remember.
He holds another shot of Sambuca between two fingers. Empires end, he says, bringing the shot to his lips.
Even as he’s drinking the shot his other hand is striking a match, ripping a small hole in the darkness.
Ryan Griffith
http://www.ryaninrussia.wordpress.com/
The Power and the Glory
Graham Greene