The Mounting Tension

A Mounting Tension straddled a Precipitous Brink, beyond which a Foreign Horde was engaged in hostile manoeuvrings, no less provocative for being entirely within the enemy's borders. In order to counter this threat to democracy, a Coalition of Allies was gathering on the more morally exalted side of the Precipitous Brink.

"Why do you straddle me, sir?" the Precipitous Brink inquired of the Mounting Tension. "Every day for six solid weeks you have performed the same indignity upon me, with no obvious result save to strain every nerve in the vicinity."
"Have you no vision? no sense of perspective?" the Mounting Tension reproved it. "My work is not intended for the vicinity alone; it possesses the most exalted ramifications, both for the free Press and for its wholly reliable sources in the spy trade. I straddle you, sir, for the good of civilisation."

So the Precipitous Brink continued to endure the indignity of being daily straddled and sat upon, until at last the Mounted Tension snapped so decisively that journalists five hundred miles behind the lines became afflicted with the fidgets.