When the towns flood and crumble, when the planes drowned beneath the surface,

that's when the trawler man comes walking out from his garden to see what's grown.

He prunes the stray fingers of the drown that protrude through the surface.

He stretches down to their forlorn gasping heads and, in his kindness, he gives them new

legs to scuttle upon.

And when he has finished looking and sees what he's made, he smiles with both of his faces.

If you're lucky enough to catch a glimpse of him in person, if you're hiding out in the ruins

or if you've made pilgrimage to see his floods,

he will see you, and he will beck into you.

He will draw you down with him into the depths, willingly or unwillingly,

and return you to an ancient shape even your ancestors only half remembered. At least, that's what the Catabasian told me, one morning in the seminary as I sat shoulder to shoulder with the other converts, trying not to shift on the hard wooden bench,

and all of the students looked bored and tired as if this was a commonplace lesson they'd heard a thousand times before.

I don't know how they could all be so confident about the habits of our God,

because when I asked the teacher if anyone in the room had seen the trawler man incarnate, there was laughter, resounding

around the room. And the Catabasian smirked. And what could I do but laugh myself, shrugging and

rolling my eyes of the attention?

As if it was inevitable that I, a new arrival whose family did not even come from the faith,

would be so clumsy and so stupid to ask such thanks.

Hating each and every one of them as I laughed along for making me feel like a fool,

for making me feel like I'd never heard his voice myself.

Still doesn't make sense to me the claims they've made.

If the trawler man is hidden from us and his haunt remains a mystery to the living.

...