The thing that crawled out of the ocean was huge and green and clearly bewildered.
It squelched on the sand, turning its eyeless head from side to side, and rocked its
mass back and forth.
The beachgoers were silent, watching the thing from the ocean. No one screamed
or fled. No one raised a camera, and no one spoke. The water continued to lap against
the shore and the seagulls shrieked. People regarded it thoughtfully but without fear,
as if watching from a distance.
The thing burbled and shook. At the sound several men started forward, but briefly. It
squirmed backward, so that the waves licked underneath it, and it seemed to pause.
The men settled on the balls of their feet, calm and alert. Around the beach, people
knelt back in the sand, pulling children onto their laps.
It waved its head and it coughed, and seawater oozed from its pores. Something rattled
inside of it, and it began to speak.
The sounds that came were indecipherable but the people listened quietly, watching their
children or the thing or the sand. It fidgeted. Men began to rise to their feet and the pitch
of the sound grew higher and frantic. The scattered crowd condensed into twos and threes,
and they inched forward.
The thing that crawled out of the ocean was singing from its throat and the people crept into a
circle, surrounding it. They listened to its story and they reached out, stroking it, their thumbs
running over its flesh.
It choked and it sputtered and it fell back into the shallows. The crowd stared at it, impassive.
Some men put their hands on the thing and pushed, and the waves licked it. The end of its
story came in bubbles, and in silence, in human hands on an eyeless head.