The Fabulous Beast by Garry Kilworth

green. It appeared undulating and endless, as if it spans eternity, but my earlier fears had been chased away, replaced by the need to concentrate in order to maintain a steady, even pace on the surface. I trod with firm, deliberate and positive step. The philosophers tell us that what we do is press the water with the sole of the foot into a brief semblance of solidity. The exact science escapes me but it is the timing of the footfall, the position of the sole of the foot, the brevity of the action, all of which add up to a successful tread. The action becomes instinctive, like walking itself, and requires no thought if one has been seasoned from childhood.
    Indeed, should you lose your step, sink into the liquidity of the ocean, you are lost. You cannot hope to regain the surface with your feet again. At such a moment you must pray to God you will be rescued by someone on one of the rafts and pulled to safety. Since there is only one crew on each raft while the craft is in motion, and should he or she be engaged in a more important task, your life could be forfeit.
    These disasters do not happen often however. We have all been walking the waters since infancy. It is almost as natural as breathing to get things right, so long as concentration remains high. Only when one is tired of mind or physically exhausted do accidents occur. There are frequent stops to ensure our safety. On hearing the high clear note from a golden horn we drop the ribbons, execute a wide curving turn, and walk back to the raft. There we may rest, eat and drink, even sleep, while the raft floats freely on the sea. Fires are lit on the rafts to warm our blood, chilled by the ocean winds and touch of the cold grey sea which breaks over our feet.
    That first morning I was greatly excited. This was a wild dream come true, for I had heard of first crossings as a child, enterprises which excited my imagination. Since hearing of them I had always wished to be part of such an exploration. The initial crossing of the Red Sea, by Moses and his followers; the primary Black Sea crossing by the Moghul Prince Natella Akaba; the first walk along the length of the Nile by the Englishman Sir Seamus Kilkenny, Earl of Cork, Wessex and the Cornish Peninsula. Those great men did not create their feats alone. They had others with them: men like me, women like Greta, who bore the brunt of the physical labour. Now I was here, on such a journey.
    By noon the waves had darkened beneath my soles but more worryingly had grown bubbling stalks of cauliflower. The movement of the water was causing increasing anxiety amongst us. A swell is one thing: one can walk up hills of water and down into troughs so long as the surface is unpuckered. But a sea that is dancing with sprites is another matter. Such movement of water is dangerous and I was relieved when our leader sounded a halt. We gladly dropped the traces, Giseppi, Greta and I, and we performed our circular movements back to our raft. There we were given hard-cake and water, and were allowed to rest.
    I spoke with my companions.
    ‘How is it with you?’ I asked Greta. ‘Can you haul at the rear with ease? Are we giving your our worth from centre and front?’
    ‘It would not be the extra work that would bother me, even if there any, which there is not. I can bear any labour without reproaching my fellow raft-pullers. It is the enormity of the depth of the sea beneath me,’ she replied with a worried look. ‘It bothers me, so many many fathoms.’
    This has always been a concern with Greta. Her mind is a place of canyons and abysses, where lurk misshapen fears. The waters of the outer ocean plumb unknown depths. Her imagination stoops through layers of liquid darkness to the floors beneath, where she sees huge monsters and foul beings not yet revealed to humankind. In her mind she sees them rise, roaring to the surface, to swallow us whole. She describes them to us as huge slimy creatures, oleaginous, squamous, with massive