A New Year’s X

To the Most Excellent, Right Honourable Bennetts,

And so, and thus. Another year that leaves poor X trapped in the same nonsensical nightmare as ever, hiding out here in my Appalachian bunker, waiting, as they say, for the other shoe to drop. Of my griefs I am not eased, Bennetts. My woes increase.

At least you and your kind had your Queen Elizabeths, your Cambornes and your Groomsports. Your fair fields and cobblestone. Oh, Bennetts, I vow not to fear your goodwill as I have in previous times! How X longs to escape from underground Tennessee where, even here, in the unknown dark, poor X is hounded by fanged extremists, by the poisoned thoughts of poisoned minds.

My country, my land, Bennetts, has turned away from all that is fair and all that, once, was noble. Meadows shudder in doom. The flowers dare not bloom.

The postmodernists have triumphed, and wrecked the land. Deconstruction, indeed! Truth as a construct, meta-narratives, the death of the Real. . . . well, you know the drill, Bennetts!

“The tolling of the iron bell / calls the faithful to their knees.”

And to think, fair Bennetts, that I’d always misheard iron as island. “The tolling of the island bell.” The new year dawns. We must plot our escape.

Until then, I shall pray God ever to preserve you, my brother-in-arms,

X

P.S. Happy Birthday.