Not a Star in the Sky

From HSU English 311 Environmental Writing, Poetry and Prose

Five limbs make up the body of an animal living in the ocean's tide. A being well-suited to its environment, unbreakably fastened to the rock's surface. Two inches thick and about the size of a hand, it encases and consumes a California mussel.

Its flesh is orange and tapers to purple at the end of each limb. Bumps cover its skin and white lines cover the orange in a webbed pattern creating camouflage among the acorn barnacles, limpets, and turban snails that also call the tide home.

Frigid waves beat at its body with no visible affect. Anemones and sponges withdraw at the slightest disturbance, but this five-point creature cannot be deterred from its meal.