The Green Sea Monsters

The Green Sea Monsters

by Jordan Chambers



Jamie Hardacre was ten years old. His Grandpa had brought him a map which was a reproduction of a fifteenth century map that came from overseas, called a Hunt-Lenox globe. It was printed on flat paper and on it lay blue colours for water and light cream for land, and there in the undiscovered parts of the map were dragons, fierce and green, with their heads rising up from out of the water, their bodies snaking forward in thorough S-shaped determination. Jamie could hardly believe his eyes. He glared at this for minutes on end.

His Grandpa said the dragons represented unknown danger. There was a word in latin pronounced hic sunt dracones, which meant, here be dragons.

Jamie marvelled at this and exclaimed a big thank you to his Grandpa. He was about five feet tall and was thin and he carried a big, bushy moustache and when he was with family or friends he smiled through it. He had a long, tanned coat made of brown cotton that he hung up in his son’s place. He loved to see Jamie and watch his imagination come alive.

With his Grandpa in the family room smoking a cigar Jamie told his mother all about it, how the blue was so deep and the land was like pie crust and how the dragons were thousands of miles long and were green and mean and terrible.

His mother said with a calm, patient smile, “That’s good. You like maps. Did you say thank you to your Grandpa?”

“Yes,” Jamie said, and for safe measure also said, “Thank you Grandpa, for the map. It is awesome.”

“My pleasure, Jamie,” he said, between puffs on his cigar.

His Grandpa sat with his Dad and they spoke in a hush apparently over serious matters. Finally, Jamie went back upstairs to look again at his map. It was amazing. He started to personalize the map in his mind, wondering where he might go on the map if he was sailing a tall ship. There were some dragons he liked and others he didn’t.

He went for a quick pee in the toilet and returned to roll up the map and place it in his closet. There remained in his mind the colourful drama of dragons and blue water, together in a fight that was always good.

He lay in bed, completely bored, thinking of something to do. He looked outside his bedroom window, twenty feet above the ground. He realized to himself there was nothing to do. So he went downstairs and spied on his family, listening to his father and Grandpa talk. There were old regrets on old investments and how they barely managed to pay the bills.

His Grandpa said, “If I would have known in my younger years Apple would win me a fortune I would have, but doubt nibbles on you until you’re old and you know. I’m old now and I know enough, yet I’m happy enough in my later years to be satisfied.”

“You could have made a fortune.”

“I know. You know when the Apple stocks went up I wished Steve Jobs “were dead. And low and behold, he is dead. That’s the kind of lucky instinct I have got.”

“But he died well. I’m sure he had lived his life.”

“Yes, of course. It seems good luck only falls on the innocent.”

“Probably so.”

Jamie was endlessly mystified by their conversation. All Jamie could think of was that multicolored apple with a bite in it. How could something like that make someone else so rich? He thought about it and imagined apple orchards spanning across the round earth. But who would pick them all and how could you sell something so common? His mind grew quickly distracted and he shuffled away.

He went out the back door to walk on the front lawn. He wasn’t sure what he’d do. He often just went one way and his mind followed his body. About him were a fence of tall trees, none of them apple. There were cones on the spruce trees that looked just like fancy paper. He inspected them shortly and moved on toward the darker part of the lot where there was a forest and giant red mushrooms. He’d kick their heads off and watch the cap fly away. But there was a deeper side to the forest that he never tempted. In that dark bower were bears, and wolves, and other dangerous things with sharp teeth.

He ran back to the side of the house and then to the front. There was a road there just past their gravel driveway. The yellow car sat stupidly like it always did. He always hated the colour yellow, but not the cream coloured yellow of the map. That was cool.

He wondered if he needed to check the map again, or had he fully comprehended the map. He sat still for a moment, looked at something, and realized he did.

But there were times he wanted to go back inside and look at the map. He was peevish about this and tested himself to see if he needed to go back in his room and look at it. But he didn’t.

In the suburb where he lived as a boy there wasn’t much to do. His friends didn’t ever come to see him. If they did meet it was happenstance. But luckily today his friend Pete was on his front lawn and Jamie ran to tell him about the map.

“Pete, you’d never believe it. My Grandpa got me a map and it shows where the dragons are. Huge, green dragons, a mile long.”

“Holy crow. Are you serious?”

“Totally serious. We should go East, or West, I don’t even know. But we should kill a sea monster.”

“Go on. There’s no sea monsters. The map is too old. They got new ones now, and there ain’t no sea monsters on it.”

“That’s just what they’ll have you believe. There are sea monsters, Pete. My map can prove it.”

“Let me see that map,” Pete said, and ran behind Jamie to his house. He wore a look of suspicion and pessimism. Jamie opened the door and they clambered upstairs to see the map in Jamie’s room.

He got it out of the closet and unfolded it. “Here, right here, and there, and there and there.”

“Jesus Christ, Jamie. That’s not right. We’ve got to kill them.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“We need a spear, and a boat.”

“There must be something in the garage. Come on, let’s go. That lake must be connected to something. We’ll start there.”

They ran downstairs and entered the cool, dusty garage. Instantly, Jamie said, “Here, this mop, screw off the top.” So they screwed off the top of the mop and Jamie duct taped a knife to it. Jamie said to Pete, “Now we’re getting somewhere. They’ll call us the sea monster killers.”

“Right on,” Pete said, watching Jamie work.

“Now we need a boat of some kind.”

“Why not that canoe?”

Jamie stood still for a moment, and then was thinking again. “Right. We’ll just have to carry it there. Do you think we can carry it?”

“With two of us I bet we can.”

“Great,” Jamie said, and duct taped the make-shift spear to the side of the canoe. “Now at least we look professional.”

They pressed the garage door opener button and got under the red, plastic canoe. They ran like a shifty turtle towards Pete’s place, across the green grass and into the lake. Peter said to Jamie, “We might be away for months. We should get some food.”

“Nah,” Jamie said, “We’ll eat the sea monster.”

“And we’re going to need paddles.”

“Right. Why did we forget that?”

“Go get the paddles, Jamie,” Pete said.

Jamie, a bit embarrassed, went to get the paddles from his garage.

After a short run he got back to the canoe and they pushed off from shore. Peter was realizing the situation. “I can’t believe we’re going to do this. We’re not even sea monster hunters. We’ll get killed.”

“Nonsense. The instant I saw them on that map I thought, dammit, that sea monster deserves it. It’s face was all green like puke and mean like he wanted to kill someone or die first. Things like that shouldn’t be in the sea.”

“You’re right, Jamie. But how far do we have to paddle before we can see one.”

“Well, they’d probably be so scared of us they go down deep to avoid us, but that’s when we go down, into the water and stab them with the spear. There’s no getting away from sea monster hunters.”

“Good thing we brought a spear,” Pete said, dully.

“Any minute now. They’ll be so cocky they’ll show their stupid green faces and we’ll stab them until they are dead.”

“How did you learn so much about sea monsters?”

“I’ve got a hankering for them. I know them like the back of my hand.”

“Did you see on the map where this lake goes, and how long we’re going to have to paddle to get there?”

“It may take days. Years, Pete. You never really know.”

“I want to go home, Jamie. Leave the sea monsters alive.”

“But what about the pirates, and the angels? What about them? We can’t just leave the sea all vile and dangerous like that.”

“Yes, we can,” Pete said, his face downturned. “I’m paddling back. Soon enough you will too.”

Jamie was heartbroken. “Damnit, Pete. Way to spoil a perfectly good sea monster hunt!” Jamie said, staring at the blue air. He finally resolved with himself, “Fine. Let’s go back.”

They paddled back to Pete’s place and Jamie asked him to help put the canoe back in his garage, with the paddles and the makeshift spear. He shook hands with Jamie and left as if he had done the finest job at ending the sea monster hunt.

When he opened the door to the house his Dad and Grandpa were still talking. His Grandpa smiled at him, saying, “Did you catch any sea monsters?”

“No. Don’t go sailing in the Atlantic. That’s ridden with sea monsters. How am I going to go to sleep?”

“Sleep resting these giant sea monsters died years ago. That map was from the fifteenth century.”

“What century are we in now?”

“The twenty-first.”

“Still. How dare they? And how am I going to sleep?”

“You’ll sleep, son,” his father said.

“Dangit,” Jamie said and marched upstairs.

He took one last look at the map. On it was a circa 1503-07. He looked at the map, then concluded, “Nah. We would have died. This lake is miles away from the Atlantic. But I know they’re there. I can feel them, arrogant green bastards. Good thing you haven’t even begun to taste the terror of my spear,” he said, scowling at the map.

“And I’m never going to get to sleep,” he said.