The Myth of Wile E

Robot Dinosaurs

The next day I awoke to a great rumbling and roaring in the distance. I felt the earth shake, and then go quiet. Shake, then go quiet. Was it an earthquake? Was it another volley in the great ground-cherry pie war?

But when I went to the top of the hill to get a better look at what was causing the racket, I saw an army of giant machines lined up on a ridge. Backhoes, bulldozers, excavators—there they were, heads bowed and hungry jaws hanging open, like a tableau from a Broadway play about robot dinosaurs, just waiting for someone to open the curtain and hit them with a spotlight.

And beyond the machines, up in the sky, I saw dark clouds gathering in the distance like some kind of dreary metaphor . . . or should I say, a simile.