GODZILLA: Absurdity Awakened

Accra, 2103

  

 Yesterday at roughly 11.37am (I checked my watch to keep track of the time even though I was quite perplexed by what happened) near the normally lively shores of Labadi Beach, a creature of absurd size emerged from the sea.

Raking in a 30 meter frame it's scales gleamed under the bleaching sun as the creature stumbled for balance roaring a volcanic like croon. Crawling over the steep but narrow dunes that house a majority of Accra's forgotten residents the creature dragged the life's work of many bewildered slum dwellers along with it toward the center of old Accra. Before I saw the last of the creature's backside, it's tail swung viciously over my head sweeping the feeble structures that dared to stand in its way and dousing the squalor settlements of Labadi with sea water.

It was roughly 12.03pm (I'm guessing the time now as it was quite distressing checking my watch with all the distractions) and the atmosphere was end-of-world like. Screeching screams scattered all sanity and we were all left in a void of true chaos by the beach.

This was no usual chaos. The air was thick with a pregnant fear that was in danger of squirting a baby at any moment as literal babies were left crying in the crumbling homes, their parents busy looking for their other more economically productive children to save. The creature had spent little less than 10 minutes sorting it's feet before it decided it best to just freestyle-it to the more elaborately planned parts of Accra.

I had been expecting the creature to emerge for about a week. The reports coming from Tokyo had been frequent and each report more manic than the last. GODZILLA! REAL! COMING! The Japanese had obviously found a way to direct some advanced sciency sonic waves to force the then growing Godzilla out of the bay of Tokyo. Shooting a tracking device on it's body they had been tracking it's movement ever since they had discovered it venturing for food in the radiated seas off the coast of Japan. An associate of mine who is in close contact with the scientific community in that region had warned me about the strong likelihood that a creature of mythical proportions would pop up in Accra. Interested in this absurd notion, I started paying attention. India and South Africa had invested time into using the same high tech sciency maneuver to push the mythical problem away from their shores elsewhere. My associate had given me very little detail on what the creature looked like, but he disclosed how it was formed.

Long time ago during the disastrous Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown, when all that radiation was poured into the sea, the sea's lowest class animals absorbed large quantities of that radiation. Said radiation made significant head way up the social ladder in the sea kingdom accumulating in all living beings. Mass buildup of this toxic substance eventually (some decades later) led to some interesting mutations. Fish with 5 1/2 eyes, sea horses the size of horses, inflexible jelly fish are just a few of the unfortunate mutations. Deep sea culture out of whack! The whack bubbled, brewed and stewed in the waters surrounding Japan finally producing something bigger than life; Godzilla! 

The scientist that discovered the phenomena thought it was a light tremble caused by the usual movements in the plate tectonics. However as she observed this strange obscurity she realized it moved swiftly and breathed! Deep sea dive and a few high definition shots later Japan was displaying for the world to see, baby Godzilla savaging some aquatic life deep in the depths of the sea. A crudely misshaped reptilian thing tossing, squirming and swallowing the other sea things in its wake. The danger of allowing such a creature to call Tokyo's shores home was quite problematic for the Japanese, and the Indians and South Africans. 

So Godzilla was blasted with sciency sound waves and even though it shouted back it lost those early battles of 'who can shout the loudest' picking up some useful experience anyway. All that sound blasting, you can imagine, caused a bit of a stir in the underwater community leading to mass fish exodus causing Godzilla to lose any source of feed. And that brings us to Accra.

Greater Ghana government raised the alarm bells for the residents to evacuate the beach. What they forgot was that the poor don't listen to the powerful. Labadi was meant to be evacuated many times over the course of multiple decades for the now countless mini tsunamis caused by the compound problem of sea level rise and Accra being in an earthquake prone region. Many senseless deaths and ineffective government initiatives passed, people still happily reside on the filthy death trap beaches of Accra. In some ways it is fitting that the people here are first to witness Godzilla, before it gains the confidence to take on the rest of the world. 

But as I watched the creature stumble towards old Accra I knew it wouldn't get too far. Maybe after decimating all the forgotten communities and foraging scraps of food (people) by the time it reached the part of Accra where people were accounted for, Greater Ghana and the rest of West Africa would have a response to this mythical threat. Maybe they would realize that a solution to the problem demanded everybody's effort because if not, they would all be eaten.