Stone Fishy

High-school pupils in southern Los Angeles have been privileged to undergo one of God's favourite tests of faith, with the discovery of marine fossil sites underneath their campus. As is well known, the fount of all truth planted the fossil record during that busy week in 4004BCE, in order to sort the believing sheep from the sceptical goats. The implausible sizes and shapes which characterise many of these mythical beasts were doubtless intended as a clue, so that in His infinite mercy and compassion He wouldn't have to consign quite so many souls to damnation. The cache beneath San Pedro high school, for example, includes a species of shark that could grow to nearly seventy feet long, and a sabre-toothed salmon. Among other things, this implies that southern Los Angeles was once deep under the ocean, and that therefore America itself is a changeable and contingent phenomenon. A likely story.