Monolith The sea receding starkly to the continental shelf unsheathes a few moments to ponder totality, Can you hear the military drumbeat of drowning fish thumping their fibrous rat-a-tat-tailprints into this sandy junkyard revelation, like children growing angels' wings in the year's first snow? I can, and this dripping desert embarasses us unexpected voyeurs, Do we have a right to view the largest excavation in history? Every legend is exposed, the evolution of every mussel, every sideways pirate ship raiding every lost city, the ambushed skeleton of every barnacled whale is collapsing in the sudden naked realization of serious gravity, and The sun, a babysitter too long for a lazy father is giving way to a wave so laughable the top we must intuit; Don't you remember? This is water, the v-shaped molecule that was our friend. The indivisibility close sanguine crabs will soon burrow up in seaweed robes to bleat I told you so's in the original language, flamencoing joyously to the clacking rhythm of their castanet pincers as every shy spirit comes gloating over the hills, shedding their surreptitious chains and bravely howling happy requiems for a hubristic race. For the first time in two millenia the confession booths are empty, and every countenance is an acquiescent smile known only to the dead and the sanctimonious.