It is a dinosaur, a monster lizard: Godzilla, T-Rex or Jurassic Park Velociraptor but huge, huge. Terrifying speed and mouth lined with huge pointed teeth.

Parts of LA lay bombed out behind it, testimony to its survival ability. Eat and eat, that's all it wants to do. Humans are but peanuts to it; scurrying peanuts each one chased and caught before being dropped into its mouth, ground up and swallowed. Barely enough to satisfy its hunger.

These peanuts, however, shoot at it with pistols, rifles, flamethrowers, rockets, artillery and bombs. It has survived all this. It has not yet survived a thermonuclear bomb, but, since the road to Las Vegas conveniently runs through the desert, it will. It will climb out of the radioactive crater and move on.

The crater will be declared a national monument, fenced off, and the road detoured round it, for people will still flock to Las Vegas.

It is sexless. Not even the moot sex of the last of a kind. No dreams of lust disturb its sleep.

There are not many peanuts on the road to Las Vegas. An occasional hard of hearing or opinion desert rat who couldn't or wouldn't listen to the news reports and clear the path. The path is not one of destruction by the way; the dino only destroys buildings and cars as if opening a can to get at the peanuts inside.

When it reaches Vegas, there will be plenty of peanuts. The town will be evacuated, but many will remain. When it reaches Vegas it will squat down in the middle of the Strip, on top of the largest latest brilliant hotel and casino complex. There it will stay.

After a while, the burghers of Vegas will compute its appetite, discover it isn't boundless and begin a program of controlled feeding, Vegas style. A red line painted in a rough circle around the monster warns of its reach, yet people will wander into the circle to be snatched and eaten.

The rest of the country will ignore it after a period of editorializing and anguish. Occasionally some minister will preach, but only for a little while.

Best let sleeping monsters lie.