The tectonic plate is maneuvered by a tech giant. Its arms are long and stainless steel. They penetrate the clouds – its bulging fingers feel for a space to clamp onto the dirt before, finally, it digs its nails. Everyone is in support of Novopangea: all the continents united at last. But if the giant’s one eye was not blind, it would see that underneath the rock was not empty space, but the entangled roots which feed into the planet herself. Though here we are discussing terrain relocation at a relatively minor scale, a smaller giant (though part of the larger conglomerate), reaches its hands under the beach of an island and lifts. This one can see, and it shakes the land. It searches for something. But as of yet, it doesn’t know what it wants.
‘Grandma, eat!’ said the mother, embarrassed by the attention which began to foam around the restaurant table. It was the queen conch that warned her. The prawns on her dinner plate were incorrect, wrong heads and wrong tails, swapped by the chef who diced endlessly at the back. The old lady, quite aptly, screamed.
‘Wave!’ shouted the last fisherman, his eyes stuffed with cockles and froth as the great sea floated upwards, before emerging finally as a ceiling of the deepest liquid. The harbour was a new build, its concrete was fresh and pioneering. Not until the next decade should it be this dark, sun eclipsed by the watery eyes of Calypso, squelching spit at shaded tourists snacking on chips dipped in red and white. It must feel surreal, watching through your crystal display the wailing of others: headless searchers, toddler running with nylon coat, while you, in interior, retract back into the protective shell. Only you can see them, too busy with fork and knife, speaking about the weather and commenting about the game to notice the airstrike of water, seabed plucked by metal prongs. The mother did not understand the queen. The daughter could not hear her. Only the grandma, who inside the window where ocean pooled, saw the shape of the queen conch staring back. Then the window burst and the restaurant swallowed. Waiting to be spat back out.
The giant is wiping the island clean, brushes off the wet sand then inserts it into place. The last piece of Novopangea, cliff connected to cliff, one continent restricted by the deep expanse no longer. The building is a land animal, grey, red, metal with glass metasoma pumping into land. Bulbous roads connect what was once limited by beaches. New fault lines trace where the island once was. Its space will be sculpted and repurposed for gift shops: keyrings, stickers, mugs, and lighters, the queen conch hung by metal rung, price at her head, 8.50€ for one, buy one get one for half. The queen tries to warn, but her shell is sealed shut. When the giants are done, they will render the heights of heaven no safer than the Earth.