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I startled at his voice, nearly dropping my purse. But, seeing him next to me, standing with the same stooped sowbug-watching posture I was able to find the thread of calm.

"Oh yes." I managed --but then felt obligated to add. "But something here is very abnormal."

The man had been focused on the roly polies, but now looked to me-- he was a plain man in a black suit with a black tie. He even wore a fedora.

A frown creased his pale face.
"You think something is wrong?" #story #writing 2/

"Well, yes." I stammered a bit, something about the way he was looking at me was unsettling. "They *are* building a pentagram."

The man stood to his full height and took a deep breath of the sea air. Then with an exhale he said "A Ritual!"

"Well, yes." I agreed "Though, that is anthropomorphizing. We can't really know what it means to them."

"Any other day, you'd be perfectly correct." The man said, resuming watching the gramersows. "But, I happen to know exactly what they are doing." 3/

"They call on her for help-- their tropical sisters are in great distress, their rare cousins of old boreal forests find their homes on fire. The isopods are frightened by what is happing to our world." He continued.

"What we've *done* to our world." I corrected. To that, the man nodded solemnly.

Dusk crept in; the beach, now amber, played host to waves of black & gold. We listened for a moment to the waves and also, barely audible, the slowly rising sound of tiny, serious, chanting. 5/

-The isopods were chanting-

As they chanted they moved around the pentagram first clockwise, then counter clockwise -- there were about 30. Though, to the human eye, they were not moving very quickly I understood that their pace was one of sprinting for creatures of their kind.

They were not all the same species or size. Some were dark and round others nearly translucent and white. One had a yellow hood on its head like the beak of a duck.

The chanting and running grew more intense. 6/

"I've never known them to make sounds." I whispered with wonder. The chanting was so faint and so delicate that it was hard to be certain it was a real sound at all. The man was silent, still watching the waves.

Then, abruptly, the pill bugs stopped their circle and the chanting changed rhythm. It was more stately now, slow. They moved toward the center of the circle then back to the edges. Looking, carefully I could see their tiny footfalls were in unison.

"Here she comes." Said the man.

7/

On the beach, the sea was swelling. The black water rising-- but not as if the tide were coming in. Or rather it was exactly like the tide was coming in-- but only on a stretch of beach about 100 meters wide.

It took on a familiar form. It became gray, then pale white.

It was her. The isopod god.
She had great black angry eyes, and stout legs that ended in sharp points. She pierced the sand struggling on to the beach, clearly finding the influence of gravity without water unpleasant. 8/

She was no ordinary deep sea isopod. We'd always known that they never really stopped growing, but this creature must have been growing from the beginning of time in the Cambrian seas. She was a little larger than a 3-story home. I could have spread my whole body over one of those dark compound eyes and not have been able to touch the edges.

Her mouth parts worked grinding -- and then I understood that similar stridulations must have been how her tiny land-based cousins could "sing." 9/

The little isopods had turned to face her, the pentagram forgotten. Some huddled close together, and I wished I could somehow do the same. I felt out of place, too large and too small for whatever was about to happen.

"Don't be afraid." whispered the man, moving a bit closer to me.

Some kind of communication was occurring between the invertebrates. I was about to ask the man if he knew what they were saying when the ground rocked knocking my legs from under me. The Isopod god screamed. 10/

"She's not happy." whispered the man. "I think they just told her what's been happening, the extinctions..."

On my knees (relieved that I had not crushed one of the little crustaceans in my fall) I could see the sowbugs were as alarmed by this outburst as I. They were in disarray, and for a moment seemed like ordinary detritivores.

They soon regained their composure and faced their god again.

Their god, however was now focused on the man. She lifted one great claw and pointed at him! 11/

The man gazed back at her, calm, perhaps a little sad, then slowly he opened his mouth--

And with great deliberateness he stuck out his tongue!

At first I wondered at this gesture of absurd defiance, but then I looked more closely at this tongue.

It was the pink color of a human tongue, but the texture was all wrong... segmented. And near the tip? There were two beady little black eyes.

He had an isopod for a tongue!

"No wonder you understood them." I thought with horror. 12/

Who exactly had I been talking to for the past two hours? The man ... or just the creature that was his tongue... or both of them?

The man looked grotesque, like a hung corpse with his tongue protruding so far-- worse the tongue itself was waving it's little arms and antennae and talking up a storm though I could not make sense of any of it.

It seemed, though, some agreement had been reached.

Then, with surprising speed and grace the isopod god turned back into the sea to disappear. 13/

The man, as if released from a trance fell to his knees beside me. The horrible distended tongue didn't seem like it ought to be able to fit into his mouth again... but it did--

He was a man again... in appearance. He looked at me, eyes filled with ... shame.

"I was so excited to meet someone who really loved isopods." He said. "But I don't think you'll be my friend after seeing that that, will you?"
14/

I opened my mouth, then scared something might crawl in, closed it, then ashamed for such a thought, opened it again-- but then closed it partway since sitting there with my mouth open wasn't sensible.

"sensible" the word made me giggle a little.

"Oh boy. Are you OK?" The man asked.

I laughed again. "I don't think anything is OK. But stop being such a sad boy and worrying about me-- I'm not what's important here... obviously. What did she say?"

"Oh." Said the man. "Oh. That. I-"

15/

"Can't tell me? Family secrets?" I instantly regretted the 'family' dig. "Sorry I should have-"

"No." He interrupted. "You deserve some room to freak out a little. I was supposed to shoo you away-- I just... Anyway. I can't tell you what she said just now. But I will. I will tell you all about it -- if you can help me."

"Depends on what the help involves."

"For now? I need a place to stay for the night. Then I have ... tasks to complete. For Her."

"Oh." I thought about it. 16/

"I can help you. But I have a condition."

"Anything."

"You need to answer some of my questions about how all of this works-- how you work-- how She works." We both glanced at the sea, as if She might be listening.

"I'll help you but, you can't just be mysterious and leave me with a story that will have me marked off as a madwoman."

17/

"Very reasonable. And, yeah, I think I can do that." The man swooned but caught himself.

"Are you OK?" I asked

"No." He said.

So I guided him back to the house were I was staying. 18/18

@futurebird

Well that was quite a journey! Fantastic!!

@Sergio @futurebird Are you the ones wearing black suits on the beach?

@lienrag

Well, the isopods have a point about humans making their lives hard, do they not?

@futurebird

They do.
Have you read Alan Moore's Neonomicon ?

@futurebird Okay, I think it was Artemis Kelosaari’s short story _Hiljainen mies_ (“The Quiet Man”). I doubt it has been translated, although I suppose it may happen at some point.

The author’s anglophone web presence is here: https://artemiskelosaari.com/briefly-in-english/.