Ornithorhynchus Paradoxus

Like Thomas plunging prurient fingers into Christ’s bleeding side, Shaw slid scissors under brittle skin, snipped through dead fur to find stitches beneath where none existed. Impossible that such a creature could evolve; bird bill and feet, beaver tail, venom snake-like in a spur on the ankle, blind young slithering from eggs to suck milk from mother’s skin instead of teats. Surely this was another jackalope. Only man could conceive of such a farce.

But still it swims in southern waters, safe now from hunters and tanners, ogled endlessly by scientists who seek some sign from worn and scratched fossil records. Play them backwards and perhaps we’ll hear a secret message from the divinity, a whisper soft as a sleek body sliding through water, telling us to be not faithless, but believing.