I asked Mayor Pilky to wait a week for my decision. She agreed on the condition that “King T-Rex” was willing to wait that long as well. To my surprise, he was.
“I’ve never lived in a garage before,” said the tyrannosaurus. “I don’t mind living under the stars for another week. But it’s kind of uncomfortable in this society if you don’t have a place to call home.”
I was glad he didn’t ask me why I wanted a week to think things over. Of course I wanted to think about where to put my vehicles if a big old lizard moved into my garage (the street or the driveway or the backyard were my big choices—if the latter, I would need to make sure I didn’t park them too close to that big boulder out back). But there were other issues I was thinking about, too.
Why did the tyrannosaurus want to live in my garage so much?
I performed some garage-reconnaissance over the next few days, and quickly found out that while my garage was pretty sizable, there were much bigger ones in town. And some of the bigger garages were not very far away from my own. Why didn’t the tyrannosaurus consider those garages? My garage didn’t have the biggest square footage inside. Nor did it have the biggest doors. Nor did it have the most windows, or the most comfortable flooring, or any other rubric I could think of that might affect the lizard’s decision to want to take over my stuff.
Now, many of the garages, like many of the buildings in town, were under repair. For whatever reason, a number of buildings in Final Pumpkin had fallen apart recently, some unexpectedly collapsing under their own weight, and so every building was being inspected and rebuilt or reinforced around town with new materials. Mine was not an exception in this regard. I had just had the place redone a few months prior.
Anyway, meanwhile, within that week the big old lizard had become a huge celebrity. Hundreds, thousands of people were visiting Final Pumpkin City just to catch a glimpse of the dinosaur. Famous rock stars, actors, even the President of the United States came personally to talk with him. I guess it was a gesture of international relations, in a manner of speaking.
And “King T-Rex” was eating up all the attention. That winning smile was plastered across his face at all times now. He had even started giving out autographs, written in sometimes stuttering, uneven letters by gripping a fountain pen between his two fingers. Sometimes I saw him pinch the pen between his incisors. I understand that he broke the fountainpen he was using on several occasions, but his fans were just as delighted to have a blotch of ink as his often surprisingly legible autograph.
Which is all to say it took me a long time before I could talk with the lizard one-on-one again. I caught him by climbing one of his favorite munching trees (yes, he ate vegetation, believe it or not) and waiting for him to stick his head inside for a big bite. When he did so, even though there were crowds around his feet, I was able to talk with him in relative privacy… though I think I startled him, as he hit his head on a large limb.
“Oh, ow,” he said. “What are you doing in here?”
I was clinging to the trunk of the tree like a slightly overweight ape. I didn’t say that, though.
“I want to know why you are all hot to live in my garage specifically,” I said. “What’s the big deal? There are many other garages that are as good as mine, if not better.”
The tyrannosaurus picked at his teeth with a twig.
“Because it’s mine,” he said. “As I told you before.”
“But now you are a king,” I said. “You can choose any garage!”
“Excuse me,” said the old lizard, pulling his head out without taking one bite. “My public awaits.”
Immediately he started talking with someone I couldn’t see from where I was awkwardly hanging in the branches.
“Yes, what’s that?” he said. “Oh, you want me to sign your beer belly? Certainly.”
I frowned and climbed down as the tyrannosaur chattered on, slathering ink across some idiot’s hairy navel.
“The tyrannosaurus truly and sincerely wants to live in your garage.”
Mayor Pilky was sitting in my house, looking at me with pleading eyes. I crossed my arms and glared at her.
“I won’t force you, Walter,” said the mayor. “But the tyrannosaur has really taken a shine to you. And he is our king now, after all. You really should consider—”
“That old lizard is not a king,” I said.
“Well, he is more like a figurehead,” said Pilky. “Like the royalty in Japan or in England. He doesn’t have complete power over everyone in Final Pumpkin in the same way a king of old would have. But still, he is a king under the modern definition.”
“It’s ridiculous,” I said. “Why would I want a dinosaur living in my garage?”
Mayor Pilky uncrossed her legs and leaned forward placatingly.
“Please understand,” she said. “Any upgrades to the garage that might be installed for our new king’s comfort will be covered by the royal fund. You won’t have to pay a dime.”
“That lizard is a meat-eater!” I said. “He might eat me in my sleep!”
“So far King T-Rex has just been nibbling on the local trees. He doesn’t even have sharp teeth.”
“Yeah, what is up with that anyway?” I said. “Since when do tyrannosaurs not have sharp teeth?”
Pilky tried a smile on me. It didn’t work.
“I think King T-Rex’s winning smile was part of why the judge decided in his favor,” she said. “He really does have nice teeth.”
“I don’t see how his dental pulchritude has anything to do with…”
“We are prepared to pay you,” Pilky said then.
My ears perked up.
“Really?” I said.
“You would be King T-Rex’s official ambassador and caretaker,” Pilky said. “And for that role, you would be compensated generously.”
“Really?” I said again.
“I mean with money,” she said.
“Yes, I understand that,” I said. “But how much money are we talking here?”
Pilky named a number. The number had a lot of zeroes. I might not have been too crazy about the idea of having a giant flesh-eating monster living in my garage, but sometimes a big check makes all the difference when it comes to putting up with the blatantly absurd and potentially dangerous.
Originally submitted to a story contest on Reedsy Prompts, in response to the prompt “Write about someone who’s so obsessed with a goal that it leads to the destruction of their closest relationship.”
Leonard Field watched the blurry white dot high above, longing to pull himself out of the muck at the bottom of the swamp. He was halfway submerged beneath the mud, and the rest of his body too was darker now. He clenched his right hand around a chain that happened to be splayed out across the swamp bottom, the individual links digging into his fresh-rugged flesh.
“I can breathe out there,” he said. “Nothing is keeping me down here.”
He could speak underwater, and when he did, no rush of bubbles emitted from his mouth. He did not breathe air in the way he used to. Technically, he didn’t breathe at all. He didn’t need it anymore.
He felt fleshy tendrils around his shoulders gently press against his body; the armored tubes that pierced his chest expanded and contracted.
“We can breathe here for you,” said the voice on his back. “As long as we need to.”
Leonard allowed himself to sink an inch more into the mud, his eyes still staring upwards. The white blur shifted and twinkled, and the fear he felt that it might go away constricted his heart.
“I have to go up there,” he said. “I can’t stay here forever.”
The voice on his back hummed contemplatively, the vibrations providing his body a warm and gentle massage.
“We must agree together,” it said. “Wherever we go.”
Leonard did not reply. The mud covered his mouth. He pushed himself deeper into the dank sludge, brushing against the chain as he did so. He heard the click of metal links, the shifting of silt. He was beneath the floor of the swamp.
Restless. Waiting.
Leonard and the thing slipped across the bottom of the swamp, exploring. The voice on his back was moving its muscles as they went. Leonard could feel it probing, snapping up weeds and small fish, crunching up crustaceans.
They never rose far from the floor of the swamp, always staying close to the mud, where they could easily escape danger any moment. Though the mud floor seemed like nothing but slime and sludge from the surface, there was a home underneath of tunnels and chambers that could easily be accessed by easing through the filmy, gooey silt and ooze that was the floor and was the ceiling.
Leonard paddled languidly while pulling himself along with his hands, dislodging plants, chasing out small animals so the thing on his back could catch them and eat them.
“You should eat, too,” it said. “Your body can eat them now.”
Though Leonard looked down at the floor of the swamp, his mind was above. He remembered cooked foods. Steak. Hamburgers. Even skewers of fish roasted over a fire. A wriggling swamp worm was not food. It was a horror show.
“Are they still there?” he asked.
“We share much now,” the voice said. “When I eat, you take nutrients, but… If you don’t eat and use your own body, you become weaker. It’s bad for us both.”
“It’s bad for us if I don’t see her,” he said. “It makes me weak not to see her.”
“You want to mate,” it said. “It’s a good thing, to reproduce. But the timing isn’t right.”
“I want to live,” Leonard said, and he turned his body around so that his face was towards the sky.
The white blur was still there, not far away. Still shifting in the waves. Still calling to him. Despite being underwater, his mouth felt suddenly dry.
“Watch out!”
The voice spoke too late. Leonard’s head collided with a large rock. He curled up in a ball, clutching at the back of his skull. When he opened his eyes again, he saw strings of red rising around his line of sight.
“It’s not serious, I think,” said the voice. “I can look. I can lick it and make the wound clean.”
“No, no,” Leonard protested. “I’ll check it myself.”
He touched the wound, flinched.
“Oh, no one saved this one either,” said a voice.
Leonard felt his heart drop, and he began to uncurl himself to get a better look.
The rock he had hit his head on was in reality a piece of concrete, round, heavy, sunk in the mud. Above it was another chain, still mostly clean with only minor accretions of swamp muck in the links. The chain floated upwards towards the surface and attached at the end of the chain was a man, naked, and very much dead. But his body was still buoyant enough to keep the corpse from settling down to the ocean floor just yet. Leonard stared at dead body, the series of bubbles still stringing up faintly from the deathly dumb face.
“We can eat him,” said the voice. “He is still fresh, and the flesh will be good for you. Familiar flesh for your body.”
The man looked familiar. Leonard had not known the man well, but he had been a crewmember on the ship. John or Dell or something, it didn’t matter anymore.
Something was happening up there. Crewmembers were dying, and they were burying them in the swamp, where their bodies could become a part of the ecosystem again—a cold and scientific way to deal with the dead, but one he approved of. It was the right thing to do. But still, why were they dying?
Were his friends okay? And what about her?
“I have to see why these men are dying,” Leonard said. “I can’t stay down here forever.”
“That which floats on the surface is large and dangerous,” said the voice. “It swallows many lives. Even before you fell to this world, that which floats took many lives from below. This voice does not trust it.”
Leonard was quiet for a time.
“I came from there,” he said. “They are waiting for me.”
“Are they?” asked the voice, monotone.
Leonard continued to pull himself along the bottom of the swampland, and a slow prickling annoyance arose and seemed to prance upon his temples. Of course they were waiting for him.
Of course she was waiting for him.
Several days later he caught sight of her. When the voice on his back was asleep, Leonard crept out onto a small island far from the ship. It was barely an island so much as a swath of thick mud and reeds that could only just bear his weight, and his limbs were deep in the muck.
Though he was far from the ship, he knew a way to peer long distances with clarity, as if looking through a pair of binoculars. It was a trick the voice had taught him after they had become one. Leonard’s body had changed in some ways after the voice had fused with his back. His hair had thinned, and webs had grown between fingers and toes. The voice had shown him that he could touch fingers to thumb in a certain way, and then, after running his hand through the water, pick up bubbles that, if he shifted his fingers just right, would form into makeshift lenses in his hand—lenses through which he could peer and see farther away.
Of course, peering through a bubble caused some distortion and warping of the image, and if there were impurities in the bubble—refuse from the swamp water—they could disrupt his vision. It took him several tries that morning on the mud island, hiding behind the reeds, before he could get the bubbles shaped just right in his hands, and clean and clear enough to look through.
She was walking on the deck. Long, dark hair framed her perfect, moon-shaped face, now distorted through the filmy water She was wearing a white one-piece swimming suit that hugged her curves, delineating her body. His mouth watered as he stared at her breasts, her hips. Even through the bubbles in his hand, she was gorgeous.
He remembered the first time he had been close to her, smelling a warm scent of jasmine. When they had held hands, the flesh of her fingers so soft in his rough laborer’s hands, the way she would kiss him fiercely on the lips, how they would…
On the ship, she raised her hand to her mouth, a small red dot winked on, then she flicked something into the water below. A cigarette—no doubt one of the new “safe” ones with none of the dangers and a healthy hit of vitamin C, but still… littering here? That was against regulations. He would have to chastise her lightly when he…
The thing with the voice on his back seemed to hum, a feeling like a light vibration playing against his spine. It was waking up. It wouldn’t want him on the surface of the water. It definitely wouldn’t want him spying like this. He didn’t want a fight over what his body did or where his body went.
He clenched his teeth and backed away into the water, letting the colorful and translucent water cress close over his head.
The voice didn’t say anything about the island visit until they were in the tunnels later that day.
The tunnels stretched in every direction underneath the swamp. They were not just the living quarters that Leonard and the thing on his back called home, but other scampering creatures lived there, too. Leonard was always careful stepping through the tunnels because he didn’t know when one of the clawed, sinuous lyre worms would ping like a struck note and lunge out of the puddles to latch on to his heel.
“It is good to walk carefully above too,” the voice said.
“I was careful,” Leonard replied. “I wasn’t even walking. I was low. I got down into the water when you started waking up.”
He had hoped the voice hadn’t noticed that he had been out. It often slept so deeply, but this time… He clenched his fists, and the webbing between his fingers crinkling uncomfortably.
“Better to stay in the tunnels,” said the voice. “You can’t find anything of value on the mud banks.”
“She is my girlfriend!” snapped Leonard. “She cares about me, and you’re keeping me from her! What do you expect me to do, wait underwater until my balls fall off?”
The thing on his back seemed to tense against his shoulders, and it let out a thin stream of warm water that ran down the small of his back. He used to think the creature was urinating on him, but apparently it thought it was calming him down with a “gift” of warm and comforting liquid stored and heated in its body.
It didn’t comfort him. The anger burned hotter.
“If we leave this swamp, we can find other options,” said the voice.
Leonard felt his eyes flash, and he nearly choked with rage.
“I am a human being! And I want to love a human being!”
The thing on his back seemed to consider this. Leonard waited, expecting another warm trickle of not-urine to snake its way down his thighs. It didn’t come.
“Are you sure who she is?” the thing said.
“I’m in love with her,” Leonard said, feeling an overwhelming longing. “I want her.”
The thing hummed and held him, crouching in the dark in the tunnel.
“I will catch a twinkling eel tonight,” said the voice. “It has a pleasing poison inside, it will make you feel good.”
No, thought Leonard. Nothing would make him feel good enough as long as he was under the swamp, stuck in these tunnels, away from his real life, away from everything that he was supposed to be.
The twinkling eel—a long and sinuous blue creature with dozens of sparkling appendages that snap and writhe as it swims—was delicious in its way. Leonard did not eat it, of course. However, even still, after the thing on his back consumed it, Leonard felt the effects of the toxins in the eel’s body entering his own bloodstream.
They filled him, fingertip to fingertip, toes to scalp, with a sense of kinetic energy and a rush of euphoria. Like jagged waves of energy, he felt his nerves jangle and swim across his skin. It felt as if the allure of the toxin reached into his farthest depths, into his deepest desires.
And he saw her. Salinda Powers. Her flashing smile, her curving waist, her flowing hair. Every word like steam from her lips, beckoning him. Every movement lithe and smooth and seductive, like the most delectable dream.
The voice was silenced on his back. Whatever effects the toxins may have had on Leonard, their force must have been multiplied several times over on the thing as it was the one who consumed the eel directly.
Thinking that the voice could not resist any longer, Leonard stumbled through the tunnels, treading over lyre worms and clicker crabs, and pushed out of the muddy bottom of the swamp, out into the water, and up, up, the excitement inside him building, eyes wide, staring at the blur of white above as it grew larger and larger.
He felt the power inside, felt invincible, felt a lust he could not contain. His webbed hands grasped the chain leading off the side of the ship. The cold metal sent a shock of pleasure through him, almost as if he was caressing her arm. Hand over hand he climbed, his breathing ragged, the thing on his back like a dead weight.
He clawed his way onto the ship, gasping, eyes on fire, teeth bared in desire, and pushed himself to his feet.
“Salinda,” he croaked.
He saw her, pointing at him. He tried to smile.
And the men came. They had sticks of electricity. He could not look at them, but only at Salinda, even as the electricity called out his voice and sent his screams spearing into the sky.
When Leonard awoke, something was missing, and something else was there. In his state of mind, it took him some time to figure out which was which, despite the gaping psychological absence. He tried to feel his face, but found that he was bound, and when he tried to turn his head, he discovered himself encased in wires and tubes at every quarter.
Clacking footsteps rang out, and when Leonard looked up, he saw Salinda. As she came more clearly into view, he saw she was wearing a long white coat over a professional gray top and ironed raven-black pants. Her mouth was open in excitement, and he tried to speak, but heard a strange rasping sound instead.
“Shhh,” Salinda said. “You’ve gone through a lot. Your throat sustained a lot of damage I’m afraid.”
She sounded gentle, and Leonard wanted to lean into the comfort of her voice, but he saw in her eyes a jet professionalism mixed with a frightening excitement that pulled at the corners of her mouth and gave a taut character to the skin around her eyes.
“Salinda,” he managed, hearing his voice finally in that awful rasping.
“You remember me,” she said, and allowed her face to be pulled into a savage smile. “I thought you might.”
Leonard imagined those days before, in the spaceship, holding Salinda close, his hand upon her cheek, her hand upon his side. Feeling his hands now as he clawed at the bedsheets, he only found rough scales, the webs between his digits stiffer now, even more uncomfortable.
“I love you,” he said.
The savage smile softened a bit, and she pressed her lips together in a sympathetic grin.
“That might have been the difference,” she said. “That might have been what finally brought one of you back.”
He stared at her, desperately, willing the restraints to go away, aching to reach out for her.
“You deserve an explanation,” she said, taking notes from the monitors connected to his flesh. “We wanted the parasite. But the parasites are smart. Smart, but, I don’t know, good-hearted? Some of the other scientists are already calling them the Samaritan suckers. They suck onto you, you know—and they are suckers for someone who is dying underwater.”
Leonard almost choked.
“Some people did die,” Salinda said. “The suckers don’t always rescue everyone. They bond with land-dwellers so that they, too, can become ambulatory on land. But they also seem to want to save people, and prefer to bond with sentient lifeforms. We don’t really know why yet, but we are trying to figure it out.”
Leonard thought back to the many times it had warned him, how it tried to help him.
“Turns out we got real lucky,” she said, patting Leonard on the upper arm. “Not only did one of the suckers go for the bait finally, it just happened to be a bait that I had had a fling with. At the time I never dreamed that dalliance would matter. Just a nice pastime, you know, and you weren’t so ugly, and I knew you wouldn’t stay around forever. We just tied you to a rock, like we deal with corpses anyway. We thought the chains would hold you, and then we would have the sucker, too, captured as it tried to bond with you. But it managed to get you loose.”
Leonard felt fireworks in his mind, broken shards of darkness and light.
“Where is he?” he hissed.
“Oh,” said Salinda, frowning a little. “Unfortunately the sucker didn’t survive. Thought it would be hardier than that. But we can still learn a lot from its remains. We are dissecting it now.”
The smile appeared again on Salinda’s face, the same kind of taut excitement returning, pulling open her cheeks so that they revealed teeth that nearly snarled, flashing in the harsh light. She put her hand on his, her flesh soft, her fingers hooking around his scales.
By this time, there were dozens of bystanders taking pictures, posing, and even asking for the tyrannosaurus’ autograph. I didn’t know what to say. For one thing, it was still difficult for me to know what I should say to a giant flesh-eating lizard. If I said the wrong thing, I thought maybe he would bite my head off—literally. But at the same time, I liked my garage. I liked my garage a lot. So, in other words, I had ample motivation to say something.
Thankfully, at that moment, the police arrived. Two of them anyway—though they did not look very intimidating. Not much does next to a rex.
“What’s going on?” said one, eyes popping as he approached the old lizard. “Is this some kind of prank?”
The tyrannosaurus turned to the officer.
“Hello there,” said the tyrannosaur.
“Officers, thank goodness you are here,” I said. “This tyrannosaur wants to steal my garage. Please arrest him!”
The policemen looked at the tyrannosaur, and then they looked at each other.
“I don’t think he would fit in the back of the police car,” said one.
“We will get this all sorted out somehow,” said the other, and he walked up to the tyrannosaur. “Did you try to steal this man’s garage?”
“No,” said the tyrannosaur. “The garage is still right over there. And despite the fact that I am a very large dinosaur, I think it is obvious I am not big enough to carry away the entire building. Plus, and this is the important part—this man Wal lives on my land. So his garage, and this entire town, are legally my property.”
Some of my neighbors were setting up lawn chairs so they could sit and watch what was happening. My neighbor Charlie’s daughter Harriet, always the little entrepreneur, had set up a lemonade stand and was drawing dinosaurs on the paper cups. The policemen just stared at the tyrannosaur.
“Please take a look,” said the dinosaur. And then he showed the police his feet, the fossilized footprints, and how well his feet fit the footprints, plus the hole where he claimed he had been sleeping. He even had a dinosaur-sized pillow.
“As you can see, I took a very long nap, and while I was sleeping, your country was built on my land,” said the tyrannosaur.
“Without my permission,” he added.
The policemen were listening, but they didn’t seem to understand.
“Do you want to see the footprint again?” asked the tyrannosaur. “Look, you can see every wrinkle and line from my feet. You won’t find another tyrannosaur with a foot that matches these prints.”
“Are you trying to take over the country?” asked one police officer finally after a long pause.
“Not the whole country,” said the tyrannosaur. “But this town is obviously mine. You will find more of my footprints all over the area.”
The policemen looked at each other again.
“Should we call the mayor, or the army, or both?” asked one of the officers to the other.
“This isn’t in the training manuals,” said the other. “Let’s just call everyone to make sure. And I think we need to take his fingerprints, too.”
“The big guy’s fingerprints?”
“Yeah.”
That afternoon was very long. Many people came. Many people talked. We had dozens of meetings. The tyrannosaur stayed cheerful throughout. Harriet made a lot of money from her dinosaur lemonade.
Finally, those in charge decided to take the issue to court—and I was called to be one of the primary witnesses. But how do you bring a dinosaur to trial?
The tyrannosaurus led me to my own back yard, talking all the way. The crowd of bystanders began to follow us as well. Everyone was taking pictures, but the tyrannosaurus didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he sometimes put his fingers up in a “peace” sign. Or maybe he was just waving. It’s hard to tell because a tyrannosaurus only has two fingers.
“Look, before we go any further, let’s at least exchange names,” I said. “Unless you just want me to call you ‘Rexy.’ My name is Walter.”
“Come back here, Wal,” said the tyrannosaurus. “Follow me. I think you will find this interesting. You know, I guess maybe you haven’t seen any dinosaurs for a while. And you can call me ‘your majesty.’”
“You are right about not seeing your kind around for awhile, Rexy,” I said. “You are all supposed to be dead.”
“You might think that,” the tyrannosaurus said, noting my insolent remark with a raised eyebrow. “But you would be wrong. Really, did you think we all just died? All of us? I heard people were pretty smart. Maybe it was just a rumor.”
“Don’t tell me there are more of you?” I said.
“There are more of us,” the tyrannosaurus said. “Of course there are. But maybe my friends aren’t going to come out right away. At least, not from your perspective.”
Behind my house was a clearing with a big lawn. Beyond the lawn was a rocky area, with plateaus and cliffs in the distance, most notably a large, towering rock structure relatively close to my property called the Pumpkin Smasher Rock. The Pumpkin Smasher Rock is a tower of stone poised precariously as if it could fall at any moment, though I am told it actually is quite stable.
Anyway, it’s a nice view, which is why I picked this place for my house. Who doesn’t like looking at big, dirty rocks?
We were starting to walk into the boulders and dust and what-not. While the stony structures are pretty in their way, I hadn’t often gone out there due to the possibility that there could be so many big poisonous snakes and spiders. But I had a passing thought that I would rather deal with snakes and spiders than a tyrannosaurus.
“What are we supposed to find out here?” I asked. “A rock with your name on it? Or maybe a 65-million-year-old bill of sale?”
“Kind of like that, Wal,” the tyrannosaurus said. “But it’s not a paper deed. I was actually sleeping out here for a long time. You wouldn’t be able to say my name.”
“You were asleep for 65 million years?” I asked.
“Sixty-five million years, six thousand years, a day—it all feels the same when you’re asleep!” said the tyrannosaurus. “You try counting the years when your sleeping underground! Ah, here we are. Here is where I woke up.”
In the space the dino was indicating, rocks and dirt were broken away and a big hole had been ripped out of the ground. Something had definitely clawed its way out of the ground here. Stones and bits of dirt in all sizes were scattered around the terrain. Some cactuses and plants had been torn up, too.
“You can’t imagine the kind of dreams a fellow has when he sleeps that long,” the tyrannosaurus said.
“A smelly old cave doesn’t prove anything,” I said, and crossed my arms.
“Look beside the cave,” the tyrannosaur said. “I marked this territory as my own many years ago. You can see the proof and I can prove its from me.”
After searching for a few moments, we found what the tyrannosaurus was talking about: a series of huge dinosaur footprints imbedded in the stone. These were very old footprints, but extremely well preserved.
“These footprints are from my time,” said the dinosaur. “And as you can see, they fit my feet perfectly. I was here before you were, I claimed the land myself, I was sleeping on this land and so occupied it all along. You have to admit, this land—actually, this town, come to think of it, is actually mine.”
“You want to live in my garage?” I said. I knew what the tyrannosaurus had said to me. I mean, I understood what he had said perfectly. But I still had to ask the question.
“Yes,” said the tyrannosaurus. “Thank you.”
Suddenly my thoughts cleared and I could talk again.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I stammered, waving my free hand. A strange image of a tyrannosaurus driving my brand-new truck arose in my mind. “You can’t live in my garage!”
“Why not?” said the tyrannosaurus. “I have thought about my problem carefully. I have no house. You have the biggest garage in the area. You have a very big door on your garage. If I duck, I can walk inside. I am sure of it. What is the problem?”
“The problem?” I said. “There are many problems! Not just one! Many!”
“For example?” said the tyrannosaurus. And he took another piece of caramel popcorn and ate it while watching me with one eye.
“My truck and my boat are in there,” I said. “There is no room for you.”
“Easily solved,” the tyrannosaurus said. “Just take the vehicles out. Look, your neighbors have their cars on the street. You can park them there, too. This popcorn is very good.”
And the tyrannosaurus somehow took a handful of popcorn (even though he only has two fingers on each hand). Somehow he managed to get the entire handful into his mouth without dropping one piece.
“I don’t want my vehicles parked on the street!” I said. I was upset. “And I don’t have a tyrannosaurus-sized toilet. I am not lending you my toilet. I don’t do that anymore.”
“I don’t want your toilet,” said the tyrannosaurus. “I can use the yard for that. Don’t worry, I will be discreet. I am a very civil tyrannosaurus.”
The popcorn was almost gone now, and for some reason that made me even more angry.
“No, you can’t!” I said. “I won’t clean up your mess in my lawn. I would need a dump truck. And anyway, most importantly, you can’t stay in my garage for one very important reason!”
The tyrannosaurus cocked his head.
“And what is that reason?” he asked.
The tyrannosaurus finished eating my popcorn with one incredible lick that cleaned out the bowl.
“Stop that!” I said. I got tyrannosaurus saliva on my arm, and it made me very uncomfortable.
By this time, many of the locals had gathered and they were watching us with curiosity. We were starting to make a scene, and I wanted to end this conversation as soon as possible. Like most people, I don’t like talking with unexpected visitors—even when they are extinct super predators.
“You can’t stay in my garage because it is my garage,” I said. “I own it, and I make the final decision. Please go away.”
The tyrannosaurus looked surprised.
“You don’t really have a choice,” the tyrannosaurus said. “After all, this isn’t really your land.”
“Huh?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“Well,” said the tyrannosaurus lazily. “The garage isn’t really yours. It’s mine. This land is mine, and so your house and your garage are really mine as well. I can prove it to you.”
It was at that moment that I realized this was going to be one of the worst days of my life.
This is chapter one of my dinosaur novel, A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep. I wrote this novel back in 2018 and 2019 originally, and have been trying to work out the best way to share it ever since. The novel has 98 short chapters, and I am hoping to post them here for free for anyone to read–and I hope to enjoy! Each chapter also has an accompanying illustration done by my friend Sam Messerly, and you can find much more of his work here. I am hoping to publish a couple chapters each week in two forms–one with just the chapter and art, but another with additional material designed to help Japanese readers of English study. My initial purpose for writing the book was that it could serve as enjoyable reading material for English learners in Japan, and I used the book in two of my reading classes years ago–to mostly positive results. Now I would like to make the novel available for any readers and teachers who might like to use it in their classes or for their own study–or just to enjoy. Thank you, and I hope you like the story!
Doesn’t this look like fun?
Chapter 1
One day I found a tyrannosaurus on my doorstep. I was very surprised. He knocked on my door when I was eating popcorn and watching a movie in my living room. I don’t remember the movie. You forget things like movies when you find a tyrannosaurus on your doorstep. Anyway, the knock was very quiet. I did not know a tyrannosaurus could knock on a door very quietly. Now I know. Be careful if you hear a quiet knock on your door.
I flopped around looking for my remote and almost knocked over a pile of broken cell phones I needed to fix yet.
After pausing my movie (Death Dancers and the Swing Thing—it’s really good if you haven’t seen it), I walked to my front door. I thought maybe it was my neighbor, Charlie. Charlie always wanted to borrow something from me. For example, one day he borrowed my truck. Another day he borrowed my best hat. Another day he borrowed my toilet. I mean he actually took my toilet to his house. “I will give it back to you tomorrow,” he said.
He still has my toilet.
I hate Charlie.
So, I opened the door. I expected to see Charlie. Instead, I saw two trees in my front lawn I had never seen before. I was surprised. I don’t expect to see new trees in my front lawn. I think it is very rare for a tree to visit your house. Have you ever seen a tree visit your front lawn? Of course not.
And then the trees moved. And I noticed that the trees were wearing pants.
And then I saw the trees were not trees. They were legs. And the legs belonged to a brown tyrannosaurus with slashes of bright orange. And the tyrannosaurus smiled at me.
“Hello,” the tyrannosaurus said. “I am a tyrannosaurus, and I am interested in your garage.”
I was very surprised. Have you ever been very surprised? I mean, very, very surprised. I could not move. I could not run. I could not speak. I think my face looked very funny because the tyrannosaurus’ smile became much bigger.
You never know who is going to be at the door.
“Don’t worry,” the tyrannosaurus said. “I won’t eat you. Look at my teeth.”
I looked at his teeth. They were not sharp teeth. He had very big, very white, very… friendly teeth. Can teeth be friendly? His were beautiful, friendly teeth. I think a person could sell toothpaste with such beautiful teeth. I saw my face reflected in his two giant molars. I noticed I was scared out of my mind.
“I am sorry,” I said finally. “Do you want some popcorn?”
I didn’t know what to say. You try talking to a tyrannosaurus sometime. Probably you won’t know what to say either. Also, I was still holding a big bowl of popcorn. From that movie I was watching. I thought maybe it was rude if I did not offer the tyrannosaurus some popcorn.
It was caramel popcorn, in case you were wondering. Probably bad for a tyrannosaurus’ teeth. Which means probably they are bad for my teeth, too. And I wondered how much popcorn a tyrannosaurus could eat. I realized that I think about stupid things when I see a tyrannosaurus on my doorstep.
“That is very kind of you,” the tyrannosaurus said. He took one piece of popcorn between two fingers and tossed it into his mouth.
“Delicious, really,” the tyrannosaurus said. “But I am not here for your popcorn.”
The tyrannosaurus moved closer, and I almost dropped my bowl of popcorn.
“I want to live in your garage,” said the tyrannosaurus.
