The seashore, and any creatures of the deep, are a long ways from here; about 900 miles to the closest salt water. Prairie folks vacation there and then await their end, close to some rising shore line.
The seashore can bring an end to common sense; some idea of endless waves lapping endless shores as endless and unchanging, never rising past the high-tide line, well, save for a few hurricanes, tsunamis, and wakes of passing cruise ships: but we no longer fear giant snakes coming forth to kill noble harbingers of truth.
Ancient Trojans thought in ageless ideas and accepted the big snake in the sea idea, but they were too late to grasp the danger signal. Trojans would not imagine that the dire warning concerning “The Horse” would come out of the mouth of a disparaged outcast, and should be listened to. To them the sea -serpent must have killed him for other reasons. Of course they also didn’t listen to the lady.
It is still too easy to believe in the fancy conceits of bombastic authorities holding wishful ( or deceitful ) ignorance, as in the days of the Ancients.
But, the troubles keep rising out of the ocean: probably it would be better if the trouble was a big snake.
Anachronistic Anarchist by Herb Eaton 