Kiss My Ring

"Bow or bend the knee," The President snarled, his voice harsh as metal rasp-seared by flames, raw and hollow and with the furnace intensity of conquest. His voice ripped breath from him, with the stench of burned treaties and broken nations. The room, a deformed replica of the old United Nations chamber, fell silent.

The gathered heads of state, some dressed in suits, others in shackles, stumbled, looking up towards the charred iron and oil-soiled gold throne. The President's right hand hung by his side, the black diamond ring on the violated heart of Africa glinting under the cold floodlights like a snake's slit eye.

They trailed behind one by one, kneeling, bowing, quaking.

"You speak of commerce," he said, his smile twisting like a blade. "Peace bought and sold in pleasant coin." He held up his ringed hand, palm open. "This," he stopped, the quiet sagging and stretching, "this is the only deal I make."

He gestured to the glinting sword laid out before him, with the names of overthrown governments written on it.

The Canadian Prime Minister knelt last, shaking. The President smiled at him.

"Canada will come next. You're ours now, no flag but ours."

The Panamanian ambassador spoke, barely above a whisper.

"The canal"

"The canal is ours," cut in the President. "Panama is a province. We've redrawn the maps in blood, America lost 35,000 men building this canal."

A trembling Greenlandic diplomat's mouth opened.

"Your vote will come," the President cut in before they could have their say. "And you will vote as wisely as you know how, for we are watching the ice melt."

He leaned forward then, to the wide-eyed delegate from Beijing. "China," he spat, the word sour on his lips. "Pay us. Fifty percent of everything you have. Your gold, your technology, your silence. Or we break your sky."

He turned around, draping his eyes over the crouching circle of leaders. "To the rest of you," he said to them, voice riding like incense on a burning empire, "you will owe your tax, to us, to the American Empire."

No one protested. They received it, one by one, lips against cold steel, eyes benumbed in submission.

Power was not taken,
It was given
Out of fear, out of necessity, out of the ruins of old ambitions.

And the world knelled.