The great beast rests on the sea floor, communities of furiously busy coral rising between its legs, running ragged lines up the limbs. The slime-coated forehead protrudes at low tide and lovers will meet behind the horns, coated with guano from the birds of paradise that nest in their ridged curves. Generally visitors are too wrapped up in their own hot tanglings to marvel at the dark translucence of its skin, their dinghys tied to mole-like protrusions, bumping against the skull when the barges pass and the waves pour in.
Purple capillaries twist and pulse down to the heart, lungs, kidneys, filling the kelp-covered sea with a deep steady hum. It warbles on subconscious scales, lulling the otters that live in its ears to sleep. The pendulous phallus half-buried in sand argues for the masculinity of the beast, although no one knows what to make of the rows of breasts down its sides or the many boneless arms that float just under the surface. The legs, hairless and impossibly muscled, are human enough; the number of eyes correct, lips curved in peaceful repose.
How it came and why, we don’t know. Daily we wake to a miracle come common, and nothing it seems, not bombs or boats or sacrificial virgins, will make him pay attention to us.
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