Fort Kelp

Early morning. An ocean the gauzy color of green and gray rolled in loud. A bit of fog. Dead kelp in piles and strands laid strewn across the beach. It was almost if they had been invaders from the sea and repulsed by a crack defense team comprised of gulls, otters and bears.

But it wasn’t an invasion, merely an uprooted underwater forest just offshore, torn asunder by the action of the waves.

Kelp had died and their death must be honored.

A man discovered the carnage and began building a fort to honor the dead. He found two pieces of beaverwood tied together with kelp in the shape of a cross. A cross was certainly the wrong imagery for a death of this kind, but nature had provided it and who was he not to top off the fort with the cross when there it was? Everything is fair game in fort building!

He built the fort and wrapped it in kelp. He mounted the cross atop the fort. It might freak out a beachcombing Christian zealot or convert him to the Gods of Kelp on the spot.

The builder would never know.