The tides boiled all out of control, crashing giant waves to roll inland right to the orange groves, and we hadn't any orange juice to give the children. The waters of the lakes had no glisten, and grew brackish and black, pining for the shine. The cats grew fearful and bristly with no light to companion their eyes, and the rats became numerous and cocky, and began hunting babies in packs and knocking over convenience stores. And worst, the lovers had no inspiration, and wandered desolately along freeways right into oncoming traffic by the hundreds.

Something had to be done, of course. The President called for an action, and all the army men went to the coast to fight the monstro-beast, but it laughed at their puny weapons, and his caustic breath singed their ears, and sent them all screaming inland, clutching their heads.

The Pope delivered an edict ex cathedra, and rows of priests went to the strands to pray. The clouds grew heavy and black, and the thunder rolled and the lightning flashed, but the monstro-beast just raised his terrible tail and lashed it down with a single and mighty splat that was heard all the way to Jamaica. The poor priests parted their line and scurried away, their cassocks soaked by the splash and their eyes squeezed tight against the fire sting of the salt spray.

Meanwhile, the moon shivered, and glowed blue and worried in the monstro-beast's gullet. She wanted to frolic across the sky, and to wax. "Ah, those were the days," she thought. "I surely could wax, couldn't I?"

They all came in turn. The chemists with their special monster pesticides, the labor unions with their trucks and drills, the international ninja alliance with their disciplined rain of throwing stars, the Boy Scouts adrip with merit badges, but no one could defeat the beast, no one could deflect the least twitch of his powerful haunches.

And then a storyteller came alone to the beach. She tempted the monstro-beast out of the water with a few tangy promises. She lulled him happy for seven days and seven nights with warm, feathery, silky metaphors.

Then, on the eighth day, when his eyes were drunk heavy with her tireless words, she stabbed him with an invective. The monstro-beast shrieked in surprise and dismay, but she did not stop there. She slammed his armour with a simile as hard as an ancient mountain and as sharp as broken glass. He reared up, wounded and all a-roar. Then she threw her arms wide and posited so grand a conundrum that the monstro-beast was torn asunder, right down the middle in a violent, wrenching fit of puzzlement.