My Little Americans
Prologue 2: History in the Making
Eventually, we stopped seeing ourselves as different: 'our race' and 'their race'. We were human, foremost we were Americans, so we damn well better act it. So, I put forth my first official law as president: all 'longfaces' (I currently shudder to use that term, but we had no other terms that applied at the time) shall henceforth be trained to move around like any other human, it is only fair after all. There was some dissent, some saying that 'longfaces' shouldn't dare to presume to act like their 'betters', and even some of my own kind were saying that we shouldn't force ourselves to be like the humans 'we clearly are not'.
I eventually held a public conference and said thus: 'We are Americans, regardless of appearance, skin colour, gender or even whether we looked human. We are human, and will remain so, and if we are human, we are going to act like it. We didn't fight a war for our freedom just so we could act like horses; we fought so we could prove we were no different from any other American citizen."
There were still dissenters, naturally, but they were far less vocal and public, and eventually all of my kind owned a pamphlet to help train them to walk properly. Having experienced the training regimen myself, i can say with complete honesty that it was painful and very uncomfortable, but the more I and the rest of us took to it the less painful it became and more natural it became. Eventually, people like myself didn't need to train ourselves anymore, we could do it from the moment we were toddlers or a little older.
This also made wearing clothing much more comfortable. Which reminds me, in the past very few of us had enough decency to cover ourselves, even I am a bit ashamed to admit that I was among them. However, my announcement carried the implication that we should dress as any other American, and so as we took to standing upon two legs, so too did we more take to wearing clothing more often.
Nowadays, our children do these things without even thinking, but back then it was a terrible trial, especially due to the aforementioned dissenters falling into their respective camps and protesting. There was really nothing we could do to stop them other than have local police arrest any dissenters they spotted and carting them off to a night to a local jail before they rioted.
As of now, it's all a jumbled mess; I can only remember the big events.
During the big gold rush, where everyone headed out west to find their fortune, only to quickly dry up the resources and lead to ruin, outlaws became prevalent, especially in the poorer areas. The Sundance Kid, Billy The Kid, The Longfaced Bandit, Tuck "Horshoes" Clement; all nowadays are looked upon as a sort of 'romantic' historical ideal or even heroes! Horshoes is probably the most famous, but back then authorities ran themselves ragged trying to bring him down, I never met him but I heard enough to know that he was a thoroughly unpleasant individual.
And of, course, there was war. There is always war, as my long years of living have taught me. I suspect that war has become so ingrained in our collective subconscious that it will never truly go away and while I am no pacifist, I always wish to see an era without war. Just once.
Fortunately for us, most wars were taking place elsewhere while we had our smaller problems.
And now, there is a new war on the rise, just on the cusp of our newest scientific endeavour. Scientists theorise that my DNA, my blood, may hold the key to extended human lifespan, and are proposing to inoculate the population with vaccines based on injections taken from my own blood. They say it will lead to a bright new era of not just America, but humanity as a whole.
I wish to believe it, so I agreed to it. But, at the same time, a country with which we had positive dealings with in the past are now starting conflicts in Poland and as they conquer more and more cities and townships, they stampede ever onward, as if they are prepared to fight the whole world.
For now the conflict doesn't threaten our shores, but, I am starting to get a feeling that it will very soon.
These have been the memoirs of Preident Luna Washington, Circa 1939
