Pie in the Sky

Lilliana, despite her petite size, finished the enormous apple pie in record time. She got up to accept her prize when, at the last moment, a caped figure leapt onstage and grabbed the trophy.

The figure laughed loudly before jumping off the stage and running into the crowd. Liliana followed, quickly darting around people to get back her award. She finally corned it down the street. The thief pulled off their cape to reveal…

a playful tattoo in the outline of an enormous manatee, one that obviously adhered to a strict twice-a-week leg routine with a heavy emphasis on the Rumanian dead lift…

In other words, a swole manatee. A muscular manatee. Beefcake of the sea. Mr. Underwater Universe. Jack diesel sea cow.

The manatee looked down as it began to speak. “Liliana, I wasn’t always the creature you see before you. I was a man, once. I’d gone scuba diving during a full moon,” it gestured toward the canal. “I’d dismissed the warnings as folktales. There I was bitten by a weremanatee.”