Winnie the Pooh Versus the Dragon
A short story
“It’s not hypothetical, is it?” Dimitri Patol asked as he closed the folder marked “Top Secret.” He couldn’t believe what he had read. As the president’s national security advisor, the information should have come to him first, but this was not a time to complain about protocol. This was a time for urgency. “In Sakurajima island, off the southern coast of Kyushu, Japan?”
“Yes. The Japan Defense Force has already engaged the dragon.” President Samantha Watkins whisked off her glasses and rested them on the desk. “But there’s been no effect. Missiles bounce off the giant lizard’s skin as you’d expect from a creature that emerged from an active volcano. If it can survive three-thousand-degree lava, it can—and did—survive the barrage of supersonic cruise missiles Japan fired.
“The island is—”
“Mostly uninhabited. But the dragon won’t stay on Sakurajima. To the south is Yakushima island, population eleven-thousand-six-hundred-ninety-eight not including tourists, and to the north is the mainland. If the dragon heads north, God help the Japanese. Fortunately, the Seventh Fleet will arrive at Yakushima in a few moments and will unleash a weapon so mighty that the dragon will be sent back into hell.”
“A MOAB?” the national security advisor asked, referring to the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in America’s arsenal, as dangerous as a small tactical nuclear weapon.
The president shook her head. “I’m afraid even a MOAB wouldn’t dent the dragon.”
Patol stepped backward and fell onto the couch. He tugged his pants, straightened his tie, and said, “You don’t mean—?”
“Yes, I do. We have no alternative but to unleash Winnie the Pooh,” President Watkins said. “I’ve conferred with General Hays and SecDef. They concur.”
“What about a nuclear weapon? Winnie the Pooh is a weapon of last resort, a secret that America must closely guard. Surely the A-bomb or a hydrogen bomb would destroy the dragon.”
President Watkins shook her head. “No. For one thing, the Japanese would never permit a nuclear weapon on their soil, but also the amount of radiation released would transform the dragon into an even more terrifying monster. Winnie the Pooh is our only hope.”
“Then the world would know about America’s most secret weapon.”
Watkins patted Patol’s hand. “Look at it this way: When our adversaries learn about Winnie the Pooh, they’ll be even more reluctant to engage America.”
Patol nodded.
The red phone on the president’s desk trilled.
Watkins pressed the speaker button.
“This is Admiral Millicent Garvis,” the gravelly voice on the other side said. “We’re one kilometer from Sakurajima island and have a visual of the dragon. We’re ready to transport Winnie the Pooh in a zodiac on your order.”
“Not by helicopter? It’s faster,” Watkins said.
“No, ma'am,” the admiral replied. A hubbub of voices swirled in the background, along with electronic beeps and whirrs. “While this dragon can’t fly, its fire breath can destroy any aircraft that gets too close. But a boat will let us reach the island stealthily. Five SEALS will accompany Pooh and immediately return to the USS Ronald Reagan. We have a drone circling overhead so you can watch as Winnie the Pooh battles the dragon.” Garvis paused. “Do we have your permission to proceed, Madam President?”
“Proceed. Wipe the dragon off the face of the Earth.” Watkins then pressed a green button on her desk.
The door to the Oval Office opened, and the secretaries of defense and homeland security, the CIA director, the president’s chief of staff, and two generals and admirals walked in.
The president extended her arm, commanding everyone in the room to sit.
To the left of where the president sat, a large painting of Thomas Jefferson glided up, revealing a seventy-inch monitor.
The dragon tilted its head back, peering directly into the drone’s camera as if it knew its adversaries’ eyes were affixed on it. The dragon opened its alligator-shaped mouth, showing off two rows of blood-stained teeth.
Blood. What has this monster been eating? Oh my god, Sakurajima isn’t entirely uninhabited, Patol thought.
The dragon opened its mouth wide and roared; a fusillade of fire sped toward the drone.
The image on the monitor jerked as the drone took evasive action, instantly zipping a quarter kilometer to the north.
The dragon unleashed another blast of fire, and again the drone evaded the beam.
Patol understood: Use the drone to deplete the dragon’s energy so Pooh has a fighting chance. Clever, Admiral Garvis, clever.
The drone’s camera zoomed in on a small, yellow bear, about two feet high, barely visible through the steam coming from Sakurajima’s crater. Pooh looked like a child’s stuffed animal, with puffy cheeks, a perpetual smile, a round, black nose, and fluffy oval ears. He wore a red half-height sweater.
Deception is a strength.
The dragon clung to the crater’s lip as it roared, oblivious to Pooh’s approach. With a height of two-hundred-fifty-five feet, a girth of one-hundred-ten feet, a neck that stretched out from its body for seventy feet, and thick glowing-red scales atop coal-black skin, Pooh would remain a relative speck even when it was atop the dragon.
If it can get close enough.
“How much longer until the dragon re-energizes its fire breath?” the president asked.
“This is Nakahara Ito, from the Japan Science Ministry,” said a voice inside the speakerphone. “Ryūkaji is an ancient monster from the time of the dinosaurs. Based on historical records from its last appearance in 1312, we estimate that Pooh has nine or ten minutes before the dragon's fire breath returns.”
Winnie the Pooh scampered and scurried along the igneous rock toward the volcano’s base, his smile never diminishing, his doughy eyes carefree and happy.
Does Pooh Bear even know what he's up against? Patol wondered.
Winnie Pooh began his freestyle ascent, climbing carefully yet swiftly.
Ryūkaji struck the mountain with its two front legs, precipitating an avalanche.
Pooh scrambled to below the overhanging rock and pulled himself close to the volcano’s face as heavy boulders tumbled over it. The boulders barraged the overhang, chipping away rock, pulverizing Winnie the Pooh’s protection, and threatening to destroy the only thing keeping him from annihilation.
When the rocks slowed their tumbling, Ryūkaji whipped its tail against the volcano, ejecting more boulders from the mountain, which hurtled toward Pooh.
Pooh Bear’s protective overhang was gone.
The president gasped; her face paled, and her hands trembled. “Oh my god. What happens now? He was our last hope.”
“There’s still hope, Madam President,” Air Force General Clinton Green said. “Winnie the Pooh isn’t alone. While he battled Ryūkaji, a C-17 Globemaster III carrying an elite military team took off from Okinawa. That C-17 is overhead Sakurajima at this very moment.”
The camera shifted focus, pulling back from the volcano to the aircraft.
Watkins balled her hands into fists so tight that her fingernails cut into her flesh.
No one in the room breathed, their eyes fixed on the monitor.
Five souls jumped from the massive airplane, their parachutes simultaneously opening five seconds later.
At the plane’s open door, Eeyore stood, his legs splayed against the door frame, “I don’t think this is going to work,” he said the moment before an Air Force lieutenant shoved him out into the sky. Five seconds later, Eeyore’s parachute opened, too.
Kanga tapped her microphone. “Pooh, you forgot your honey jar.”
“Oh bother,” Winnie Pooh replied. “Sorry about that.”
“Do it!” Tigger said as he bounced from one cloud to another.
“I’ve got this,” Owl replied as he wriggled out of the parachute straps. “I don’t know why they insisted I use a parachute, too.”
Rabbit gave Roo a thumbs up, and Roo lifted the honey pot out of his mom’s pouch.
Owl glided down, grabbed the honey pot, and flew directly above Ryūkaji. Owl flipped back on his wings, spilling the honey over the dragon, who shrieked and screamed when its four feet stuck to the honey, the mountain now like flypaper.
Ryūkaji writhed and twisted, but the harder it tried to escape the syrupy, sticky honey, the less it could move.
Kanga leaned forward, spilling Roo from her pouch.
Roo tumbled through the air, and when the little kangaroo was parallel with Ryūkaji’s chin (or what passed for a chin on a dragon) kicked it hard and fast, its kick so powerful that it separated Ryūkaji from the honey.
Ryūkaji spun up the volcano’s side while Roo somersaulted down.
Owl swooped and caught Roo with his wings while the dragon continued its upward roll, whirling faster and faster up the mountainside until it reached the volcano’s crater.
Ryūkaji completed one last spin and fell back into Sakurajima, causing a massive rockslide that sealed the volcano, trapping it inside.
The president turned to her national security advisor. “Honey was the weapon?”
Patol shrugged. “Who knew?”
“They knew,” Watkins said as she nodded to the screen. Pooh, Rabbit, Piglet, Kanga, Roo, Owl, and Eeyore were now on the ground, sniffing the air, flowers, trees, grass, and small, iridescent mushrooms. Even Eeyore wandered in search of something, his nose brushing the grass and occasionally sneezing as blades tickled him.
“Do you think there’s honey on this island?” Winnie Pooh asked. A single furry, black, and yellow bumble bee buzzed overhead. Pooh skipped in a three-hundred-sixty-degree circle. “There’s honey on this island!”
“What now?” Watkins asked the room. “I feel I should award Pooh and his team the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
“That’s not a bad idea, but they have a little more work first.”
Watkins raised an eyebrow.
“They’re scheduled to train with SEAL Team Six next week.”
“Who’s training whom?” Watkins asked.
“Exactly.”
If you enjoyed this story, I think you’ll also like The Liberation Gang.
Nice! Ever seen Dogma? Great movie
"two-hudred-fifty-five feet" missing the 'n' in hundred.