Sculptus Poe has a dream

Dream Beast of the Sea

by Glen Jansen Osborne

We arrive at the peer just as two young lovers are leaving hand in hand.

The old man is bent and small and gray.

He, all too eagerly, photographs the license plate as the pair drive away.

In his rapture, he jostles and jitters, nervously taking a great number of pictures.

Then he writes down their every small infraction,

cackling at himself as he thinks about his plans to turn in their

every infraction of the park rules.

I turn away from the hateful little man as we drive down the boat ramp.

Up from the water a creature rises.

It is beautiful and deadly and dark green.

It has the shell of a large snapping turtle.

The shell ends in sharp spikes and a long tail, like that of a crocodile.

At the top, a head protrudes, but not the head of a turtle,

rather, the head of a monitor lizard.

It's forked tung tastes the salt air as it strides purposefully down the boardwalk.

It walks on long, powerful hind legs like a deinonichus.

It's front legs end in claws and webbed hands like a turtle's.

I watch in wonder at the beauty of the creature, I shiver as its gaze crosses mine,

and then it sees the old man.

The beast opens wide his jaws to reveal a mouth full of needle-like teeth.

The hateful little man is too stunned to run or even scream.

I open the door to my car and call to the creature.

It hesitates, but a bird in the hand is worth two in a car, so he attacks.

As he sinks his teeth into the old man's face, I decide it is time to go.

So I close the door and we drive through the shallow water around the trees and up another beach.

As we escape to safety I wonder idly if the old man survived.

Probably not.