Shock a quokka
I’m the Sea Wasp That Stings Your Dreams
Sorry kid, this is blue ocean, and you’re out of your depth

G’day mate,
Y’know what they say, eh Bob? The Priscilla thing? It ain’t truly over til the fat lady sings.
Listen up furball. Hear that? Bottom of the Götterdämmerung ninth. Brunnhilde of the horned helmet firin’ high heat and closin’ it down. Twenty stone of pure soprano, moppin’ up the last measures. All over but the cryin’. And scene!
Sorry kid. You’re cute and all, but you’re a quokka. Fur with toes. I’m a box jellyfish. We don’t do cute.
Cute? Breakfast.
Women love cute, right? Making a big fuss over their outsized gerbil, doing the poses, doing the selfies, all roses and giggles when you’re sloppin’ heel and hamming it up with your macropodine Stanky Legg, but in the dead of night, cute don’t cut it, marsupial boy.
Women don’t get all liquid and runny over cute. Munchkins are cute. Young Sheldon is cute. What women crave is risk.
Edge.
Danger.
Danger is my middle name.
OK, technically my middle name is Chironex fleckeri. That dog don’t hunt. Some dork with dandruff, hypochondria, and an overbite made that one up. Dude’s probably into cosplay. Has a pet quokka.
That was mean, even for a predator like me. All that carnage. Messes with your head, Bob.
Those who fear me, and that pretty much covers carbon-based life, call me Box Jellyfish. Esquire.
Marine Stinger.
Sea Wasp.
Not Bob. I don’t lose women to Bobs. In my world, Bobs are lunch. Tasty with horseradish.
My tentacles are ten feet long. They’re carpeted with cnidocytes. No, you don’t know what those are. You don’t wanna know. And I have millions. Every one ripe to bursting with venom. Deadly.
How deadly? Put it this way, pouch boy. I pack enough poison to kill sixty people. You know people, Bob, you’re dating one. Well, you were.
Tense, right?
But the sting Bob. Ooo. You know how they describe the pain when I sting?
Excruciating.
Ex.
Cru.
Ci.
A.
Ting.
Say it, Bob. All five syllables. You wanna mess with five syllables?
People who get stung die in two minutes, five if they’re having a bad day. I’d make it faster, but hey, I have standards, gotta put on a good show.
That’s for people. Not sure how long a quokka would last. Never stung a quokka. Hope to keep it that way, you know, the hair and all that, got a touch of trichophobia if you must know. But a sea wasp’s gotta do what a sea wasp’s gotta do.
Sure, if I were a sea cricket, all bets would be off, right? You and me? We’d pop round the local at beer o’clock for a nice coldie, Bob. First shout of schooners on me, drinking Great Northern Super Crisp Lagers til we’re munted and legless and full as the back of a plumber’s ute. Don’t know what the hell that is actually, not a lot of plumbing on the reef.
But I’m a sea wasp. You’re a pouch potato. Working the Koala Nutbush with your quokka buddies for the tourists at Bondi Beach, looking pudgy and adorable, busking for dollarydoos. I’m hunting on the reef, taking down flatback sea turtles, and scaring the fair dinkum shit out of everything else.
You’re not a joey anymore Bob. You gotta man up here. Priscilla’s taking scuba lessons. We’re doing Montgomery Reef. Not sure you’d like it. Loaded with sea wasps and all. You’re more of a shrub man. She’s more of a jelly sheila.
Don’t make this hard, Bobberino. Back to Rottnest, my dude. Settle down. Have some joeys. Maybe someday, if Priscilla and I ever call it quits, you and me Bob, we’ll hit the boozer and get properly pissed.
Until then, stay out of the ocean.
Mate.
Thanks to Sianna Lani for the inspiration and hopefully forgiveness. Check out her blockbuster Quokka series here.