Yin And Yang

Caroline pressed Sam's buzzer again, but still no answer. She was getting worried now.

"Thammy, Thammy, it's only me!" she implored through the letterbox.

It wasn't like Sam to miss work and not call in. For two days running. And especially not Mad Monday, a veritable goldmine for a "journalist" obssesed with footballers getting up to juvenile and tasteless yet essentially harmless hijinx.

For Sam to miss this, something must be truly wrong.

Caroline knocked one more time and got no response. She decided to take matters into her own hands.

Hoping she wouldn't have to climb it, she pushed at the side gate and it opened obligingly. She did not notice them but a few hours later, police forensic officers would identify the coarse strands of fur caught on the wire and adjacent bushes as belonging to Homo Dewosaurus.

Sam lived alone. Caro knew that. Her last housemate had left after one of Sam's Abu Ghraib fuelled hairbrush wank sessions.

Caro picked her way through the hundreds of silver goonbag bladders Sam had collected over the last month.

She got to the lounge room window and looked in. She wished she hadn't. Blood spattered on the walls. The furniture had been smashed by an unholy force. And in the middle of it all, Sam's broken body.

Hundreds of kilometres away, the Dewosaurus was racing time itself. He knew that from when the sun went down on this day, he had only the hours of no light. Once the great fiery orb rose to cast its harsh glare on the land of the mortals, the Dewosaurus would be no more.

As he pushed through the scrub, he felt his energy draining. He had not consumed the one of from Grand Final night. That was for the ceremony, not the belly. When he'd struck her, she'd bled a strange green liquid that had stung his paw ...

He had two calls to make before his time fell. The Shaneosaurus. Then Bunyip.

Half an hour later he approached the gaping maw of the cavern where his Lord dwelt. He uttered the customary password roar but heard nothing in return. He ventured into the void.

Far away, in the chamber of the Shaneosaurus, he saw a faint illumination. He roared again and this time heard something low and tragic. He roared a third time and the sound, like a million of the world's saddest violins all being played at once, intensified.

He kept going.

The Dewosaurus entered the Great Hall Of The Shaneosaurus gingerly. He did not want to surprise his master.

The spectacle that greeted him was magnificent in its abandoned desperation.

The collosal blonde King Of The Fat Bastards was slumped despondent in his throne of human skulls. A baseball bat sized of rough hewn tobacco encased in an A3 sheet burnt dangerously toward its end. At his feet were littered the remains of a thousand bottles of Midori, some smashed, some still intact, green tendrils visible in their glass interior.

"Sire!" said the Dewosaurus.

The Shaneosaurus lifted his eyes from wherever his mind had been.

"Dewosaurus" he replied in a soft growl.

The smaller one let the moment sit.

"I have come to say goodbye, my liege, before the hours take me."

The Shaneosaurus considered him. Approach young one he said and as the Dewosaurus drew close, the yellow one sprang forward and grasped him, held him close to a furry chest matted with endless tears.

"Shit fucken kicking mate, shit kicking fcucken cost us badly," he sobbed.

The Dewosaurus struggled for breath, his face pressed into the wiry jungle of the Shaneosaurus' chest.

"You wouldn't have fucken missed those shots would you? Would you mate? You would have sunk them!"

As always, the Shaneosaurus' wisdom knew no bounds. Yes, the Dewosaurus would have taken the goal scoring opportunities that mere puny humans like Schneider and Milne had squandered. He would have dobbed them. He would have brought his master his one unattainable prize.

"Yes Lord Shaneosaurus, yes I would have."

The Shaneosaurus released his grip. He set the Dewosaurus on his feet.

"A great one among our kind you are O Dewosaurus! Before you go to endless Bainmarie In Sky, I give you this one gift."

In his enormous yellow paw, the Shaneosaurus held a single normal sized cigarette.

"Give this to your apprentice. If ever in mortal danger he finds himself, then smoke this fag in one drag, and an hour on this world you shall have to help him!" he pronounced.

The Dewosaurus took the enchanted dhurry and tucked it behind his ear.

"For obvious fucken reasons, if he has any brothers and sisters, don't let them find out. You don't want to be summoned to help some little shit get the Mel Meninga up his cousin," the Shaneosaurus counselled.

The Dewosaurus growled his acquisence. Then the two embraced for the last time.

"Worry not sire, go back on the tank and get some more draft picks and you might finally win something," he said.

The Shaneosaurus nodded ruefully. St Kilda really were shit.

"Fare thee well O great Dewosaurus," he cried as his favoured underling departed up the darkened passage, "Fare thee well you magnificent fat bastard!"

A hop skip and a jump later, the Dewosaurus was lightly tapping on Bunyip's window. Weighed down by sleep, the apprentice gazed lazily out the window until he saw the enormous visage of his yeti-sensei fill the glass.

Bunyip rushed outside. Glancing at the eastern sky, where dawn's first salmon fingers crept over the horizon, the Dewosaurus knew he didn't have long.

"YOUNG ONE!" he boomed, perhaps the last time his voice would ever be heard.

"TAKE THIS CIAGRETTE! IF EVER YOU NEED HELP, ONLY IN WORST OF TIMES, YOU SMOKE IN ONE BREATH! THEN THE DEWOSAURUS WILL COME, FOR BUT ONE HOUR! USE THIS WISELY!"

Bunyip understood immediately.

Dewosaurus grabbed him in a great bear hug.

"Defintely go first round you will. Maybe even top five if team pick according to best available talent rather than by positional need!"

"I go now," whispered the Dewosaurus.

He extended a big furry index finger. Bunyip met it with his own.

As the day began to make itself felt, the Dewosaurus left our world. Slowly at first, then with ever increasingly rapidity. In the quickest moment, Bunyip felt the bulk pressing a finger against his own go, saw a crumpled suit of thick fur fall before him, as if it were just a costume donned for a higher purpose.

A tiny bumble of sparkle light danced before him. The essence of the Dewosarus. Bunipy saluted then tossed back his head and let fly a mighty roar. A manbeasts's roar. The sparkle stopped in its motion, and like a tracer bullet, blazed into the oblivion with a perfectly curved trajectory. In seconds, it could be seen no more.

This night my friends, take a moment to step outside. Onto the street, your garden, the exercise yard for any Collingwood supporters who may have someone reading this to them.

Survey the ancient obsidian canopy that envelopes us all, pierced by pinpricks of brightest light. Select one of these twinkling dots, one that smiles for you, focus upon it and know that from far away, another time, another place, yet inextricably intertwined with yours, the Dewosaurus watches content in his mighty heart.

Bunyip does.