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I was hanging out with my horse-man pal, pickle horse-man, knitting on a lovely sunday afternoon (well, I was knitting. using my specially designed-for-a-horse knitting set that my horse-man-pal made for me so i could knit) and pickle horse-man was reading the paper, when the phone rang. I picked up. It was deputy foreign minister of the interior of sacramento’s finance district and zionist subcommitee chairperson Deendra Hassan. “Speak to me,” I said. “Bonky, Pickle Horse-man,” she said, “the president has gone rogue.” “Hold on,” I said. I put her on loud speaker. “Say that again.” “The president has gone rogue.” I looked at pickle horse-man. Pickle horse-man looked at me. We both knew what we must do. I slammed the emergency living room transformation button and all our furniture receded, the table folded up and stowed itself away, the sections of the hutch displaying our antique commemorative plates and spoons swiveled around to reveal our hidden GUNS, my knitting slorked away like an octopus and squirreled itself away in a coffee tin, pulling the lid down tight. My eyes swiveled around in their sockets revealing tiny 4k screens that broadcast FOX NEWS directly into every part of my brain. Images of buildings exploding, children crying, rampant looting, zoo animals run wild, they washed over me in direct connection to my neural implants. Then the president broadcast a signal hijacking the feed. He said that at eight o’clock that evening he would detonate a nuclear explosive that would annihilate sacramento. He said the determination to destroy sacramento had come to him after a really very cursory moral assessment. He really only had to think about it for a minute and the decision was so totally obvious and justified that no one in his cabinet could deny it, nor could any of his generals, nor anyone polled, nor anyone he asked on the street. Everyone told him “yeah, just do it.” or “get it over with.” I slammed the living room transformation button again and got back to knitting and pickle horse-man put his monocle back on and started reading the paper again. “I’m just glad we have a guy in the white house who really thinks this stuff through and listens to the people and doesn’t just blind fire.” I said. Pickle Horse-man Mm-hmm’d. “I’d hate to have to make these sorts of decisions.” Pickle Horse-man yup’d. “You know how I like to waffle when given too many choices.” “Leggo my eggo,” said Pickle horse-man, and smirked. The day came and went and evening settled upon Sacramento. The air raid sirens began their caterwauling. We went out onto the roof to watch the nuke drop. We saw the missile shoot up into the stratosphere, arc down, and begin its descent. That’s when we got the call. It was Simyna Burna, the archbishop cantilever of St. August’s Hope Cathedral and Laundromat on 3rd street. “Speak to me,” I said. “Bonky, the President has gone maverick,” she said. “He’s attempting to thwart the nuclear missile from destroying Sacramento.” My cigarette dropped limp from my mouth and hung from a bit of gummied chewed lip, “My God,” I said. I slammed my roof transformation button and the dormers revolved and every shingle revolved and the solar panels revolved, and our patio chairs revolved with us in it, and it’s always really scary being in the seat when they’re revolving because there’s a lot of moving parts that you’re exposed to and you have to cling on for dear life to keep from falling into some gear or rotating mechanical part, but anyways, everything revolved and came back to its original resting position. Nothing changed because roof transformation sequence doesn’t require any actual transformation. The roof is fine the way it is and we couldn’t think of any tactical transformations that could improve its roofness. I received a facetime call from the president. “Bonky,” he said, “after a cursory moral assessment of the nuclear annihilation of sacramento, I decided it was an absolute imperative to keep sacramento from being destroyed by nuclear holocaust.” I could only see his darkened face, dimly lit by the pale light from his cellphone camera. Suddenly a bright light blew the contrast of his camera, then the color details returned, his yellow bucket hat materialized first, his face, his goretex jacket whiffling in the wind. The ground below him receded with astonishing speed. “Look,” pickle horse-man pointed. I looked up and saw the president shooting up through the air, en route to intercept the missile. “Mr. President!” I Shouted into the receiver, “have you run a moral assessment on ending your own life in trying to intercept the missile?” His eyes shifted back and forth in thought. “Oh my God,” he said. He began flailing. “OH MYG OD. - I have to call you back.” He hung up on me. Perilous few minutes remained before the apocalypse. “Well,” I assessed, “there’s nothing we can do now. we just have to wait and see.” I cracked open my limited edition 4th of july bud light because concerns about heart disease and drunk outbursts and brain inflammation were now petty concerns. Tastes like aluminum. My final thoughts were mostly about all the football I had watched in my life. In my mind’s eye I saw all the players, their greatest plays, their greatest half-time speeches, the times they were awarded game balls, players traded away, players traded for. I saw them at the combine. I saw them in college. I saw their stats. I relived every touchdown. Every on-side kick. Relived every contract negotiation. Saw the millions flow and ebb. Saw all the sideline fights. All the penalties. The endless coverage. Every snap. Every fumble. It’s crazy how well I lived. It’s insane how good this sport is and I’m so lucky to have witnessed so much of it. I looked over to see what Pickle Horse-man was doing and he was just reading the paper. I lowered the paper and saw that tucked in its spine was a framed picture of me. My mouth dropped. He looked up at me and smiled. My eyes went all glizzy with emotional upwelling. In his last moments, my horse-man pal was looking at a picture of me he had framed all by himself. Overwhelmed with gratitude. My president was sailing in an inescapable arc toward the nuclear arm that threatened american lives and I was just so happy that a professional was in office. An expert. A career politician trained in the science of governance who had spent his life planning for an event just such as this one so that I wouldn’t have to. I could be free to think about other things. Like football, and, well, exhausting the pornhub catalogue. The only way out of desire is through. But in these final moments I am free, truly free, possibly for the first time in my entire life. I rise to recite the pledge of allegiance one last time but I notice the missile has disappeared. “Where’d it go?” I ask the horse-man. “Did I miss something?” We call the president. He facetimes me, which is always kind of awkward. I don’t like facetime. He’s in the middle of a press conference. He says the missile missed Sacramento. They’re looking into where it landed, and they take the cataloguing of their nuclear arsenal very serious. They’ve inquired with Sacramento 2 and Negative Sacramento and Dark World Sacramento and Mirror World Sacramento, and the missile did not hit any of those locations. They inquired in First Heaven Sacramento and Second Heaven Sacramento and Hell Sacramento and Mountain Kingdom Sacramento. They’ve sent carrier pigeons to Medieval Sacramento and valentines to Candy Sacramento and butterfly kisses to Tunnel of Love Sacramento. They’ve shouted out to Dumb Sacramento and asked the authorities of Prison Sacramento if there were any nuclear detonations in their facilities. They’ve sent genies to the Sacramento of the Air and divers to Deep Ocean Sacramento. But I know what really happened, I knew the President was lying to protect the citizens. It had to have landed somewhere. The technology hadn't failed that drastically. So I hatched a plan. I called up my contact in the NSA, Agent Fuchsia Horse-Man (yes, she was a horse-man). We agreed to meet at the abandoned nuclear silo outside of town. As we approached the entrance, the heavy blast doors began to slowly grind open. Inside, the silo was dark and dusty, lit only by flickering emergency lights. At the center, a lone computer terminal glowed with an eerie blue light. Fuchsia Horse-Man typed in a password and the terminal sprang to life. A map of Sacramento appeared on the screen, with a small red dot blinking furiously. "That's where it landed," she said, pointing at the dot. "It's underneath your house." "My God," I said. "It's always the last place you look," she said, solemnly. "But that means..." I began calculating furiously. "...that we need to get rid of it quickly," FuchsiaHorse-Man finished. "The President is planning to have his post-victory gala there." We looked at each other, our expressions grim. This was no longer about personal safety or moral assessments. It was about preserving our way of life, our culture, our identity as Sacramentans. There was only one thing we could do. "Alright," I said, steeling myself. "Let's suit up." Fuchsia Horse-Man handed me a radiation suit and gave me a quick rundown on its operation. The suit was filled with sensors that could detect wounds and would provide protection from gamma radiation for several hours. It could also administer sauce. Three different sauces. Red, yellow, and white, so in the event of death your body could be immediately consumed by survivors. We would have to hurry. With trembling hands, I put on the suit and sealed it around my neck. Fuchsia Horse-Man did the same, and then we made our way towards the exit. "Stop," I said. And Fuschia Horse-man stopped, her body curiously rigid, as if she knew what I was going to ask. "I just need to know... what happened to Fuschia Sacramento?" Fuschia Horse-man seemed to deflate. She had been carrying the knowledge for too long for one horse-man woman to bear. "It burned," she whispered. "It burned so bright, and it felt so right. But then the fire went out, and all that was left was ash. Just like everything else." Her words hung in the air, heavy and oppressive. We stood there, silent, knowing that we were on the precipice of possibly repeating that history. With a sigh, she turned back to the task at hand. "Come on," she said. "I blame myself. Because I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't fast enough. But, now... now that I'm here with you, Bonky. I know that we can do this. We lost Fuschia Sacramento, but we can still save this one." We sprinted through the darkened tunnels of the nuclear silo, our breath coming in ragged gasps as we dashed past blast doors and control rooms. The map on the computer terminal guided us towards the location of the impact site, deep beneath the surface of Sacramento. As we approached, the ground began to shake violently, sending dust and debris cascading down from the ceiling and it was all swept up along with loose sheets of Pickle Horse-man's vintage Play-Horse that swirled around in the vortex. "No!" Shouted Pickle Horse-man, "not my gold limited edition Miss February of 1978!" "Let it go!" I threw out a leg to block him, but he leapt into the vortex to retrieve his precious pages of pornography. He was carried up by the pornado through the hole of the ceiling, never to be seen again. I looked to Fuschia Horse-man. She nodded, grimly. He had been tested. And this time... he had failed that test. "This is it," I panted, my suit feeling suddenly claustrophobic and humid. A deafening roar filled the air, drowning out all other sounds. "The missile must be about to detonate. Nuclear bombs roar before they detonate. I know this because of the american bombs I intercepted and destroyed in Kokura and Niigata during the great war." "Then we'd better hurry," Fuchsia Horse-Man replied. With renewed determination, we raced forward, leaping over fallen support beams and dodging pools of radioactive sludge that the bomb threw off during its priming phase. The suit's sensors began to register increasing levels of radiation, but it held steady, protecting us from harm. Finally, we reached the epicenter of the explosion. The ground here was charred and twisted, the earth itself molten. In the center, a small crater had been formed, spewing forth a constant stream of steam and ash. At its bottom, partially obscured by debris, lay the detonator for the nuclear device. We looked at each other, our expressions grim but resolute. There was no time to lose. "One... two... three!" I shouted, and together we leapt into the crater, our feet locked together, because we knew only the combined power of her foot and my hoof together would be enough, and we landed heavily on the detonator, the chi blast of our connected friendship shot into teh device, and with a sickening split, we had torn its evil beating heart in two. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the tremors began to subside. The roar died down to a dull rumble, and finally stopped altogether. The air grew still, and the silence that followed seemed almost deafening. We exchanged glances, knowing that we had saved Sacramento. Against all odds, we had prevented another nuclear disaster. As the dust settled around us, I couldn't help but think about what it meant to be a horse-man woman in this world.