The Proverbial Grazing of the Seaweed
Before I go on, yes, kelp is a vegetable. Which is why this is such a once in a lifetime event. I have no idea how often this happens, but I saw it... once.
It was July 7, 1997, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I was out on the beach, going for a late night stroll with my friend Peter. We had a flashlight with us to see what was going on around us, seeing as how the moonlight was obscured by cloudcover. We're chatting about this, that, and everything else as we mosey along. You know, we talk about everything two 12 year olds do talk about: video games, sports, school, aspirations, how much our parents suck, movies, tv, and how girls aren't looking so icky anymore. Anyway, we're going along when Pete first makes the observation that there's a lot of crap being washed in tonight. Mostly seaweed, but we're also getting more dead fish, jellyfish, and debris then normal. I mean, a LOT more than normal. I know occasionally a lot of jellfish will die and get washed in after a storm and things like that, but it's usually just jellyfish getting washed ashore, not an exceptional amount of jellyfish in conjunction with other oceanic flora and fauna. We both thought this just wasn't quite right, but we just assumed it was because of our lack of knowledge of ocean ecosystems (we didn't actually say that, I think the literal words were "This doesn't seem right, but I don't know shit about the ocean.") But we proceeded on, avoiding the jellyfish and dead fish because they just feel messed up when you step on them with your bare feet. But we just rambled on over the seaweed, because... well, it's just seaweed. If I knew then what I know now I not only wouldn't have stepped on it, I would have gone the fuck back inside and never came out again.
So as we meandered along the shore, we carried on. As we progressed though, the shoreline became worse and worse. Just dead things, everywhere. Somewhere in the Universe a Jedi was weeping. It was really quite gross, I'm suprised we went as far as we did. I know I was thinking it, but I think it would deny my masculinity if I wanted to stop with my friend because I thought something was gross. Perhaps he was thinking the same thing, but unfortunately, we'll never know. But to get back to my point, I was completely flabbergasted by how much worse it was getting as we went down the beach, but we pressed on anyway.
Eventually we began to hear this strange sound. It was like an erie combination of crunching and fizzing. I could feel the goosebumps forming on my skin and my arm hair stretching away from my body, trying to escape from this cryptic situation. But like fools, we pressed on. And the sound grew ever greater and as we continued to here it from on ahead we could begin to hear it slowly coming out from the sea, then behind us. It was slowly enveloping us from all sides, but we were so enthralled by this sound that we had to investigate that we remained oblivious to the fact that the Reaper had us in his grasp.
To Be Continued...
