From the wharf that night I saw it crawl onto the stony shore...
And from a crevice in the rocks it pulled a hat and coat...
And in the guise of man it shambled down the boardwalk in the dark...
Primeval rumblings in its throat...
The Last 4X...
Its luminescent eyes peer in the tavern by the docks...
Where sailors spend their leave and dance with village girls...
And when the dancers kiss it pounds its fists in angst against the glass...
The lonely last of a long forgotten world...
The Last- Not quite man, it lives within the sea...
The Last- Final son of some aquatic breed...
The Last- We'll never understand its wretched pain...
The Last- The life we share the ecstasy it craves...
Its scales- Abhorrent worst of all creation...
Its cries- A tortured mind's emancipation...
Its form- Inverse of common decency...
Truest terror of it all- Anthropomorphic similarities...
Its people died out long ago, a holocaust we'll never know...
Target of extinction, nature's own malediction...
Lusting for our human pleasures, twisted longings beyond measure...
Memories exhuming, painful past consuming
Explanation:
The Last is written from the perspective of a man who lives in a seaside New England town. He tells us the story of a creature he has seen crawling out of the ocean.
We come to learn that this creature is the last member of an aquatic species that has all but died out. Little is known of what happened to them, but the narrator is able to tell us quite a bit about the individual he has witnessed. The creature, left utterly alone, longs for the companionship it sees in our human lives, but is denied because of its horrific appearance. Scaly, dripping, and creeping on webbed limbs, it must disguise itself and move among us in the dark. But, as the narrator tells us, "truest terror of it all, anthropomorphic similarities", the most frightening aspect of this beast is just how close it comes to being human.