"Griptide": The Corrected Text

The following 100-word piece of microfiction appears in the most recent issue of Necrotic Tissue.  Unfortunately, the editor of that magazine made certain changes to the final paragraph without telling me (not cool), changes that I feel compromised the story's meaning and rhythm.  So I am taking the opportunity here to present my original version of the story:


"Griptide"

By Joe Nazare


Hapless schmuck.

Only he could wade in to relieve himself, and then find himself yanked out to sea as if the very hand of God girdled his waist.  Minutes of ungainly, involuntary bodysurfing, and now the shoreline has all the haziness of a mirage. 

Shrill cries behind him: startled, he twists around and sees, beneath an impromptu seagull halo, the island of jagged rock from which the Pacific is still draining.  That's just great; he's gonna be cracked piecemeal by those crags he's vectoring towards.  Then the squid-faced monstrosity lumbers into view, and he realizes he should be so lucky.