by Jacob Wenzel
I tossed back my share of quarts
In countless North Sea ports,
To try to drown the longing in my soul.
One night in Liverpool,
I was feeling like fool,
Six pints of bitters did not do the deed.
I was just about to pay,
When I heard an old voice say,
“I know just what you heard, and what you need.”
He was wrinkled, old and pale.
And as he downed a pint of ale,
I saw a broken, troubled, sad old man.
His hands shook as he drank,
And, worse than me, he stank,
He said, “Save yourself, my lad, while you still can.”
“I can see it in your face,
That we've been to the same place,
And like me, you cannot let it go.
Like you, I was still young
When that haunting song was sung,
And how it lingers, trust me, lad, I know.”
“It put me in a trance,
But I never took the chance,
I never had the strength to go that course,
But you're still in your prime
And you have a little time.
Go back there, lad, and try to find the source.”
I served Leland ten more years
Before I faced my fears,
The old man's words still echoed in my mind,
I knew what I had to do,
Said farewell to Leland's crew,
I took the first ship south that I could find.
T'was an old decrepit boat,
But it looked like it would float,
And it would take me there for what it's worth,
It was a sorry freighter
That would take me 'cross the equator,
To Capetown, and ’round the Horn to Perth.
The voyage started well,
Though the captain gave us hell,
The cold old man cared not for ship or crew,
They were bloody stupid sods,
Who had lived, despite the odds,
Though, how they had, no-one ever knew.
From Sud Afrika we parted,
And around the cape we started,
The southern sea began to show her scorn.
A storm of fearsome force
Blew us far south off our course,
I had my doubts we'd make it round the Horn.
At the bottom of the world,
The sails then came unfurled,
The bloody sods did not have them well stowed,
When the winds hit at their worst,
The foremast gave out first,
The rotten timbers could not take the load.
And as the foremast fell,
It took the mizzenmast as well,
Men caught in the rigging screamed and flailed,
Then the hull began to twist,
As if crushed in some great fist,
We were tossed about as decks below us failed.
Then something hit my head,
And I figured I was dead,
I thought of the song as blackness took me down.
In the water, I awoke,
I was one lucky bloke
A miracle, it was, I did not drown.
The scene, I surveyed noting,
A dinghy near me floating,
No one around me seemed to be alive,
Whether Providence or chance,
Or some sort of cosmic dance,
I was the only crewman to survive.
It took all the strength I had
To swim over just a tad,
And pull myself into that little boat,
In the boat, a man had died,
And I dumped him o'er the side,
And from the wreckage, I began to float.
Food, I had me none,
No respite from the sun,
As for water, a little rain I got.
And oars, there was a pair,
But use them and go where?
I'm a sailor, but a navigator, not.
A sleep then overtook me,
Deep as the deepest sea,
I slept until the morning's golden light.
I stared into the sky,
As the days just drifted by,
Until I could not tell the day from night
With nothing left to prove,
And almost too weak to move,
I was thankful I'd be taking my last breath,
Was I dead, or merely dying,
When I heard a lone voice sighing,
It pulled me back from welcoming my death.
I sat up to see a glow,
Coming from the sea below,
And the song I heard was not just in my head.
The song was my life-rope,
Filled with love and joy and hope,
I began to understand just what it said.
The light then grew so bright,
The day then seemed like night,
And there a creature did, beside me, rise.
Not a woman or mermaid
Not a fish that God e're made.
I've never seen three lovelier pair of eyes,
The things she used for grippers,
Weren't tentacles, arms or flippers.
But something like no man has ever seen.
Her iridescent skin,
Would, any contest win,
Regardless of its color-shifting sheen.
She said, “You finally came,
No others did the same,
I've been waiting for you for so long,
There were times when I did fear
That none of you could hear,
And that's why no-one stayed to hear my song.”
She said her name was Mar,
She was from some distant star,
Though why she left there, she could not recall,
She made the lengthy trip,
In some sort of astral ship,
The ship crashed here, and damn near killed them all.
Then she said, “If it's okay,
I will touch you in my way.”
I nodded and she reached and touched my cheek.
A flash of pure desire,
A rapture born of fire.
Then she drew back and left me feeling weak.
It was then, that I knew this,
In that moment of pure bliss,
We traded bodies and she took my place
But as she rowed away,
The one thing I can say,
I saw a tear roll down that bitch's face.
If the southern seas, you sail
And you hear a plaintive wail,
That fills you with a longing and a wish,
If the song then haunts your soul,
And you never feel quite whole,
It could be that it's me, the Southern Songfish.
Oh, the Southern Songfish calls you,
And the Southern Songfish waits,
And its song will ever haunt you, till you see St. Peter's Gates.
For if you ever hear it,
You'll never be the same,
If you find me, you'll rue the day that to these seas you came.
After the singing and some s'mores, Randy told them his story, and William told him a much simplified version of theirs, then William asked, “So, Randy, where are you headed?”
“Well, I figure I can get down to that town in a couple more days to pick up some supplies, maybe sing a few songs, and inquire around to see if anyone here has ever seen my brother, Eric.”
“That town is only about an hour walk.” William said.
“Well, that's true, for you or me, but Dusty, here likes to take his time, and where he takes his time, I take mine. Now it's getting late, I think I'm going to turn in.”
“Thank you for the songs, Randy,” Sally said, “Perhaps you can sing a few more for us tomorrow.”
“I'll look forward to that, go
odnight, you two.”
William and Sally went to bed, and were quite surprised to be awakened by Bob in the early morning, “I think you should both get up and get dressed, as we have been abducted by pirates, but everything will be okay.”
“Abducted by pirates? Why didn't you warn us about this?”
“It was less than a one half of one percent chance, hardly worth losing sleep over.”
“Less than one half of one percent, but it happened?”
“Everything that's possible happens, you just happened to follow that timeline, at least you didn't follow the four percent chance timeline of going into the town and being shot by the sheriff.”
“What do we do now? How did it happen?” asked William.
“The pirate ship walked over us, a hatch in the bottom opened, and we were lifted by hooks on chains into the hold of the ship. They also picked up Randy and Dusty.”
“Let me get this straight, we're hundreds of miles from the nearest large body of water, a pirate ship walked across the prairie, picked up a five-meter desert tortoise, and a twelve-meter-long RV, with us inside, and has us in its hold, doesn't that seem a bit strange to you?”
“It’s a different world, William, now if you would please dress and go to the door, I will pull in the sliders.”
As they were getting dressed, Sally asked, “What are the sliders?”
William answered, “You know that most of the interior of the Winnie is constructed in alternate dimensions, they are built in what we call 'sliders', a holdover from the days when RV's had sections that could be slid out to increase interior space. Bob can collapse the sliders so that they become inaccessible. In case the Winnie falls into the wrong hands, it can be made to look like any other Winnebago. We wouldn't want them to get their hands on the technology here, especially the weapons in the garage.”
They went into the foyer, and the interior of the Winnie began folding in on itself, the stairway, the chandelier, even the piano, suddenly collapsed to what, for a moment, looked like photographs, with no depth at all, then the two dimensional images of everything that had been around them slid away, disappearing into the seams of the “normal” interior. Even the marble floor receded, and was replaced with rather worn carpeting. The interior now looked well used, and felt a bit cramped, with the two humans and a Bengal tiger waiting just inside the door.
There was a pounding at the door. William opened it to find a cutlass being held to his throat, by what looked to be a typical seventeenth century pirate.
“You'll both be coming out now, the captain wants to see you.”
They stepped out, and behind them Fluffy snarled, the pirate jumped back and slammed the door closed, “Your weasel can stay inside.”
Though the inside of the ship was immense, far larger than any pirate ship had any right to be, it seemed to be constructed in the same manner, huge, timbers lined the curved hull, and immense beams supported the deck above. There was a muffled sound of large machinery, humming, and clanking and the boat creaked as it gently pitched side to side. Although they were in the middle of the prairie, the timbers were moist and dripping. The pirate with the cutlass noticed William staring at the dripping water, “It never really dries out, you know, it gets a little depressing, really.”
They were joined by another pirate who was leading Randy, who had apparently put up a struggle before being subdued, he had a black eye, but the pirate who was leading him in shackles, and two others who were walking behind them all had injuries ranging from cuts and scrapes to a broken nose. “They got the worst of it,” Randy said.
The pirate with the cutlass said, “All three of you, keep moving, we're going to see the captain.”
Sally tried to imagine what the pirates were going to do to them, and moreover, how they could get away.
They were led up several stairways, which the pirate called “ladders”, and led out onto the maindeck. William looked upward. There were five masts, the first three being gaff-rigged, rather than the square rigging that comes to mind when one thinks of a pirate ship. The sails were furled on these. The two stern-most masts were totally different than anything William had ever seen, seeming to be large, vertical cloth-bladed windmills that were spinning in the gentle breeze. William imagined that they were driving whatever great mechanism was carrying them across the land. They were several tens of meters above the ground, but there was no clue as to how the ship was being moved.
“On your knees, scum, before the captain, he will decide if your life is worth sparing.”
Another pirate, obviously the captain, approached. He wore a patch over his left eye, and a nasty looking scar ran from under the eye patch to the corner of his mouth. First, he looked at William, “I will spare you for now, you will tell me about your strange craft, if I am satisfied, I shall let you live.” he moved on to Sally, he lifted her chin with his fingers, “A fine lass, one with many potential uses, I shall decide your fate later.” Then he went to Randy, “You... I know who you are, that singing tortoiseboy, isn't that what they call you. Well, I've heard your songs, and they're stupid, 'riding the range' this, and 'put my tortoise out to pasture' that, not one good song about being a pirate in the lot! I should kill you, put you out of all of our misery, but I will let you live on one condition.”
Randy was defiant, he spat on the floor, “What condition?”
“That you give your brother a hug.”
Slowly, Randy's sneer faded, and his eyes brightened, “Eric?...but how? Why?”
Eric helped him up, hugged him, and said, “It's a long story, why don't you and your friends join me for breakfast in my cabin, and I'll explain.”
Eric's cabin was opulent, and as they ate a breakfast that consisted of twelve different courses over about two hours, he related his story.
“Do you remember that girl I was dating when I was attending Brown, Sarah Hofstedtler? After she threw me over for professor Simpson, I was devastated, I couldn't concentrate on my studies, especially in Simpson's class, a brilliant engineer, but a real prick. My grades dropped and I was about to lose my scholarship, so I headed west to try to forget her, I figured that I could come back for my degree later. When I got to Chicago, I was rooming at a pogsnest house, where I met this choofy-girl named Millie, the one you met, she made me forget all about Sarah...”
Sally interrupted, “I'm sorry to interrupt, but what's a pogsnest house, and a choofy-girl?”
Randy filled her in, “A pogsnest house is where 'pogs', that's men and women who are down on their luck, might stay for a while, it's like a dormitory, with separate quarters for men and women, they're usually run by charities, they charge a little, but not enough to cover expenses. Choofy-girls are usually well-off young women who want to help out the poor, and will volunteer to entertain the men.”
William said, “By entertain, you mean...?”
Eric said, “They'll read books to them, tell jokes, partake in idle chit-chat, and sing songs. But Millie fell in love with me, and I with her. She took me to meet her parents, and that was what changed my life. They were very rich, and when her father discovered that I was a mechanical engineer, he asked me if I could help him and his friends solve a problem. You see, her parents were part of a secret organization dedicated to saving the tortoises.”
Randy interrupted, “But you're a pirate, you steal tortoises, kill them, and sell their meat and shells on the gray market. That's how you get rich.”
“That's a myth, we steal tortoises, yes, but we don't kill them. We take them to South America which is mostly uninhabited, and where they'll be safe, you see, there was a blight that killed almost all the tortoises down there, but our tortoises are immune to it for some reason, and they thrive there. But anyway, Millie's father designed the amphibious ships the pirates use, and they were having a problem on land when there was not enough wind. The authorities could easily catch up to a becalmed ship. I designed a spring driven clockwork mechanism to store the energy from the windmill, to be
used to power the walkers even when there is no wind.”
“What about steam?” William asked.
“Steam? Well you could use a steam engine, but it would be horrible for the environment, burning coal or wood produces smoke, and if everybody started using steam engines, or even worse, that internal combustion engine that runs on petroleum distillates that that fellow in Germany developed, imagine how bad the air in cities would be in just a few decades. No it's better to stick with energy sources like the wind, it's free, and totally clean. Anyway, I wanted to go test the first ship, and I found I was well suited for life on the ship. After the shakedown cruise, Millie married me, and after our honeymoon, I left on the first of many voyages to rescue turtles.”
“She said she hadn't seen you in over a year.” said Randy.
“That's true, we only get to see each other about every fifteen to eighteen months, but it's a small price to pay to fight for the cause.”
“Why can't she come with you?” Sally asked.
“We tried that once, but she gets sea and land sick, and now she helps run the organization. After her father retires, she'll take over completely. She's needed back home, and I'm needed out here.”
“I guess I don't really understand the tortoise thing,” said Sally, “What happens to them?”
Randy spoke, “What happens is, the tortoiseboys, like I used to be, round up dozens of wild tortoises and herd them north, where they're slaughtered, and the meat is put on ice, and sent all over the East, and some is even sent to Europe. I did it because it was the only work I could get, but I never quite felt right about it, I always thought about Dusty, and how, these other tortoises might be just as intelligent he is, and I couldn't bear the thought of someone eating him.”
“Which brings me to my point,” Eric said, “Randy, I'm taking Dusty, I know you would never allow him to be taken to slaughter, but he will outlive you. Someday, someone would catch him, and that would be the end of this fine noble creature. We're going to set him free.”
“And what about me?” Randy asked.
“Well, I can let you go on your way, or you can join me and my crew, or what I think would be best, is for you to go back to Chicago, settle down, a certain former choofy-girl I know has a very pretty, younger, unmarried sister, who loves Western music. You can write songs, new songs about freeing the tortoises. You can raise people’s consciousness, get them to stop eating tortoises. Randy you can be a big help to the cause, sort of a celebrity spokesman.”
