2009-06-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty big shock when Godzilla was diagnosed with cancer. But it wasn’t a surprise. The guy’s career had been built on radiation. And rampaging through cities.

Some people said he had it coming; mainly people who lived in the cities through which he had rampaged, or had lost loved ones in said rampages.

Godzilla never really talked about his illness. He just went back to Monster Island to be close to the other kaiju during treatment.

Since Godzilla’s thick, scaly hide had a history of blunting everything from artillery barrages to laser beams to titanic, taloned fists, surgical excision of the four-storey malignant tumor inside Godzilla’s colon was ruled out. So in came a small ocean of alkylating agents and anti-metabolites.

It scared the hell out of Minilla when Godzilla would wake up vomiting in the middle of the night, sick from the chemo. The two of them had fought the likes of Kumonga and King Ghidorah together, but it was this battle with adenocarcinoma that made Minilla really consider for the first time that his dad wouldn’t be around forever.

Minilla confessed his fear that he may have ridden on his father’s tail for the last time to his cousin Godzooky. He also wondered aloud what it meant for his own health, and Godzooky’s for that matter, now that a family history of cancer had been established. Godzooky didn’t really know what to say, so the two young Godzillasauruses just spewed atomic smoke rings over the Pacific for a while. But still, it made Minilla feel better.

Without public comment from Godzilla’s camp regarding the star’s failing health, rumors swirled. Some correctly deduced the cancer, but others went for wild speculation: depression, nervous exhaustion, anorexia, attempted suicide, addiction to painkillers, AIDS.

Like usual, Godzilla just wanted to be left alone, and, like usual, mankind just kept pestering him.

One morning a boatload of paparazzi appeared just offshore, looking to snap photos of the waylaid superstar. Furious, Godzilla struggled out of bed to deal with the uninvited guests. But his treatment had left him too exhausted and he collapsed on the beach to a chorus of clicking shutters.

The pictures would’ve surely been plastered across the covers of every tabloid from London to Tokyo the next day, except that the force of Godzilla’s sickly but still massive bulk colliding with the ground triggered a small tsunami. As the cameramen kept snapping their photographs and licking their lips, a wall of water suddenly rose before them and capsized the boat.

The paparazzi who didn’t drown outright came bobbing to the surface, above which Rodan was flying lazy circles. The giant pteranodon would spot them, swoop down and pluck them individually from the water and split them in half with his razor sharp beak. They died screaming, every last one.

When Rodan returned to land, Godzilla didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Rodan knew Godzilla would’ve done the same thing for him.

Godzilla realized that wouldn’t be the last he’d see of the media, though. Already his agent was deflecting calls from Entertainment Tonight, 20/20, Inside Edition, 60 Minutes, even The View. Mothra suggested going on Oprah would be a dignified and sensitive forum in which to discuss his “condition.” Godzilla bristled at the idea of such an intimate setting and, besides, what the hell was there to talk about anyway?

He’d face the public. But he’d do it on his terms.

At the 2009 Academy Awards, an emaciated Godzilla (a rumor of his wearing a wetsuit under his tuxedo to add bulk to his withered frame ignited the blogosphere the next day) walked on stage alongside Tea Leoni as a presenter for Best Supporting Actress.

The applause was deafening.

As Godzilla walked to the podium and the orchestra swelled, Hollywood’s elite rose one by one, then en masse. The broadcast cut between shots of Godzilla’s sunken, pancake-make-upped face and shots of Jack Nicholson grinning behind a pair of yellow-tinted sunglasses, Dame Judi Dench clapping with extraordinary grace, James Cameron pumping his fist, and Halle Berry delicately wiping tears from her eyes. It was one of those magical Oscar moments.

After two full minutes of this, Godzilla looked at Tea Leoni like, “Are we gonna do this?” But she had backed away a couple steps and was turned towards Godzilla, clapping like everyone else.

Godzilla seemed uncomfortable with the unmitigated support. He threw his arms back and loosed that terrible, metal-scraping-metal roar, which just made everyone clap harder. They cut away to a shot of Clint Eastwood and, so help me, his eyes were tearing up. Then Godzilla blasted the room with his atomic breath and everyone ran from the burning Kodak Theater in a panic (It wasn’t until an untelevised ceremony the next week that it was announced Taraji P. Henson had won Best Supporting Actress).

After that, people gave Godzilla a lot more space. He quietly returned to Monster Island and the care of Dr. Quinn Darien.

Darien had volunteered her services to the stricken giant as repayment for the two years Godzilla had spent providing security to her and the crew of the good ship Calico in the late ‘70s. The two had never been close during that time, but Darien felt a certain karmic debt to the monstrous protector who had saved her life time and again from threats as varied as tar monsters and rogue militaries. The ‘70s were a weird time for everyone.

Darien now felt Godzilla’s progress should be further along and so began the radiation therapy.

Soon Godzilla was weak as a kitten. That is, when his muscles weren’t seizing up violently and spilling the cup of green tea he was trying to bring to his lips. Most of the time he’d just lie crumpled up in bed as his mind dug up long-buried hatchets. And Monster Island was full of hatchets.

One day King Caesar came by with a box of checkers to help pass the time. Godzilla watched that stupid dog grin on Caesar’s face as the visitor set up the game. It wasn’t that Caesar was stupid. Or that he was even really grinning. He just had the face of a dog. That was how he looked. It was how he looked the first time he and Godzilla had met. The time he had kicked Godzilla square in the head. And then body-slammed him.

Always.

That.

Stupid.

Dog.

Grin!

Godzilla flipped the board over, sending checkers rattling to the floor and Caesar yelping out the door.

Baragon’s offering of chicken soup, Manda’s book of Chinese proverbs and Anguirus’ DVDs of the first season of Mad Men were all similarly dispatched. Godzilla’s addled mind was morphing his old friends into the older enemies they had been, and Godzilla feared a simmering comeuppance in his weakened state.

Minilla went to talk to his father about his rough treatment of friends. The voice sounded familiar, but Godzilla’s vision was failing. He suspected Minilla was actually a cyborg under the control of the Black Hole Planet 3 Aliens. Godzilla grabbed Minilla’s arm and tried to peel back the skin and expose the robotic machinations he was sure lay beneath.

Minilla jerked his arm free from his father’s grip and backed towards the door. The specter of his father’s clouded eyes and desperately groping hands haunted him as he hurried to Dr. Darien.

Darien admitted her familiarity with Godzilla was based exclusively on his destructive capabilities. She had assumed his sour disposition was normal. Also she was just generally afraid to go near him.

A urinalysis revealed the problem: the treatment was working almost too well. The chemical and radiation bombardment had finally convinced the tumor to give up the ghost. It was coming apart layer-by-layer, spilling more and more decomposing cancer cells into the stiff current of Godzilla’s bloodstream. In its weakened state, Godzilla’s renal system couldn’t flush the toxins out of his body quickly enough, so now his insides were brimming with death.

The problem revealed, Darien rushed Godzilla into hemodialysis. But with Godzilla’s gargantuan size, no conventional dialysis machine could process the blood quickly enough. Darien calculated that, to handle the high volume, Godzilla’s dialysis machine would need to stand as tall as the tallest skyscraper the monster had ever toppled. And to save the patient, it would have to be built now.

The whole project would cost a ridiculous amount of money, more than even a megawatt superstar such as Godzilla could afford. But the idea of reaching a beggar’s hand out to the world he had worked so very hard to shun tore Godzilla up. He’d take his chances on his own, thank you very much.

Darien, afraid to argue with the fearsome patient, took Manilla aside and regrettably guaranteed Godzilla’s imminent death without the intervention of this proposed colossal dialysis machine. Manilla refused to lose his father to stubborn pride and picked up the phone to Hollywood. With that, he had set into motion the biggest collaboration in the music industry in nearly thirty years: ‘ZILLAID.

It was the best-selling single of all time -- even with the inevitable illegal downloads and the dubious morality of helping someone who had caused so much destruction, but star power is star power -- a cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s classic “Godzilla” featuring Thom Yorke, Akon, Lou Reed, Beck, Katy Perry, Wayne Coyne, Bruce Springsteen, Naoko and Atsuko Yamano, Damon Albarn, Paul Simon, Bjork, RZA, Willie Nelson, John Mayer, Jason Schwartzman, Kanye West, Eddie Vedder, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, Andre 3000, Dave Grohl and, of course, Bono. After the initial release, Madonna did a dancey, vocoder-heavy remix of her own. And even though people felt it was more a shameless grab at the spotlight than any real concern for Godzilla, it still got them bouncing in the clubs.

The money poured in, the construction raced ahead and soon Godzilla got his towering dialysis machine, much to the relief of an internally panicked Dr. Darien. Slowly but surely, the machine filtered the death out of Godzilla’s system; the haze lifting from his vision and the aches in his body throbbing less. He still felt sick, but it was the kind of sick he knew he could come back from. Like getting on the far side of the winter solstice.

Everything seemed to be going great, but then something happened to the dialysis machine. Something weird. The nuclear power embedded in Godzilla’s dirty, dying blood had been percolating out through the vast network of membranous tubing that carried the blood throughout the huge machine. And somehow organic and technological were married in the church of radiological mutation.

One day Godzilla came in for his dialysis session only to find the giant machine had grown arms, legs and a bad attitude. It hissed at Godzilla upon his arrival, falling forwards onto its spindly, robotic legs and raising a scorpion-like tail above its head. And before the stricken Godzilla could react, the machine unleashed a concentrated stream of irradiated toxins from the needle-tip of its tail. The force of the blast threw Godzilla backwards through the air before he crashed hard to the ground. He blacked out as the dialysis machine monster powered by his blood scurried out the door.

When Godzilla finally came to, the distant sounds of battle greeted him. He staggered to his feet on wobbly legs and staggered into the jungle.

The sounds were horrible: shrieks of pain, violent explosions and an increasing silence. Once he finally arrived in a clearing -- or a portion of jungle that had been recently cleared by the impact of enormous bodies and innumerous energy blasts -- he saw the kaiju scattered far and wide, some writhing in pain, some lying unnervingly still. Only a bruised and bloodied Manilla still stood against the menacing mechanical arachnid.

Godzilla braced himself against a cliff face, his chest heaving, copper on his lips. He watched anxiously as Manilla fired a smoke ring at the skittering machine. The ring broke harmlessly against hard metal and then the machine raised its tail high above its head, preparing for the killing stroke. Godzilla wanted desperately to help, but was so damn weak. He cried out in angst, his once-mighty roar shattering into a million pieces.

The noise stayed the machine’s tail, if only for a moment, and got Manilla’s attention. The sight of his father buoyed Manilla’s spirits and the young godzillasaurus turned to his opponent with grim determination and loosed another assault. But again the smoke ring just dissipated against the machine’s exoskeleton. And again, the dialysis machine raised its tail.

The next move was pure instinct. A tingling surged through Godzilla, bubbling up from the depths, agitating every last cell in his body until his spiked dorsal fins glowed white-hot and crackled with energy. Then, with his gaze fixed squarely on the mutated cancer-bred machine, Godzilla unleashed his infamous nuclear pulse. The sparkling, swirling, sluicing beam slammed into the dialysis machine, hurling it through the air, ripping through its circuitry, absolutely devastating the techno-organic creature and leaving it a smoldering heap.

Feeling that power unleashed from within him, Godzilla finally felt good. Cleansed. Reborn. Power surged in him once again and there was no hint of sickness, weakness, cancer. He was Godzilla once again. He threw his head back and loosed his roar, at full volume, like a cock calling out the sunrise of a new day.

Hearing that fearsome racket, the other kaiju slowly regained themselves. Godzilla gently razzed his battered cohorts that, what, he had to do everything around here? They managed weak, pained laughs, relieved to have their leader standing tall amongst them once again.

The ruined dialysis machine heard the ruckus and rumblings around it, heard something approach. But it didn’t have the strength to raise its head and look its executioner in the eye. And so it lay still, cursing its short, violent life. It waited and waited, but the blade never fell. Finally it managed to tilt its throbbing head and was surprised by the sight that greeted it.

Godzilla stood over his fordone foe, hand extended. The dialysis machine didn’t understand. You pack a helluva wallop, Godzilla said as he proffered his hand anew. This time the machine reached out a trembling, gnarled hand of its own.

2009-05-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

the king