Montshire Museum, 2013

While not as attuned to religion as others, the bones of extinct creatures evoke an ancient sort of reverence to me. The kind of reverence I felt one summer, stepping into the Montshire Museum only to find myself mere inches away from the towering frame of a Tyrannosaurus rex. This one's name was Sue. While not an entirely interesting name, enthusiasts of such animals will immediately know Sue - the Tyrannosaurus whose size had surpassed all others of its kind. Sue, the largest carnivore who ever set foot on land, displayed at a museum in my own humble state. A true sense of deep awe being in front of the tyrant's most unique feature - its skull. In the museum, Sue was posed with its great head lowered, for viewers to gaze at the rows of banana-sized fangs juttting from the gaping maw. All the while staring into those sunken, empty eye sockets - which once possessed forward vision that surpassed my own. To be in the prescence of such an immense and fabled animal, I could not help but feel anything other than visceral, intense respect.