ars-et-saliva
david p. eiser
zeitraffer
The story from the South Seas
Once upon a time there was an English lord, a widower, who had been retired
for several years. Although he belonged to an impoverished noble lineage and
had never gone hungry, he still dreamed of going on a sea voyage around the
world.
Fate rushed to his aid and one day sent a mailman with a thick letter to him from
a renowned law firm in London.
It was a fabulous notification of the death of an uncle from the well-to-do line of
his family. Due to a lack of direct descendants, this uncle had left him his entire
fortune, real estate and financial resources in the millions...
The lord rejoiced, suitably reserved, and began to rave about his youthful dream
once again. - After handing over the inheritance and realizing the extent of his
means now at his disposal, he decided to sail around the world and, as a proud
Briton, to visit all the countries of the (please hold your nose at this point and speak out loud) British Commonwealth of Nations.
So he commissioned a shipyard to build him a seaworthy sailing boat.
Since it took almost a year before it was ready, he had enough time to find an
experienced skipper, give him the job of putting together a crew, equipping the
boat and then set sail with him.
They sailed via Scotland to Ireland, to Canada, then to the “British” islands in
the Caribbean, finally through the Panama Canal into the endless expanse of
the Pacific Ocean, towards Australia.
In the South Seas, fate befell them in the form of a tremendous storm, a ty-
phoon of the highest order, near an atoll unknown to them.
The storm and waves had swelled so violently that at some point the rudder
broke off and the helmsman was thrown into the sea, never to be seen again.
At the same time, an oncoming giant wave smashed the ship against the coral
reef, causing its bow to break off and most of the crew to fall overboard and
sink.
The boat was pulled back into the choppy sea, but shortly afterwards it was
thrown against the reef again, the stern broke off and the rest of the crew
was lost except for Moses, who had tied himself to the mast in fear.
When this terrible wave rolled back again, he thought he would not escape
alive and began to pray.
That helped, because once again the wreck was swept away by the raging
sea and the merciless storm and was driven against the island and as if by
the hand of a ghost, was hurled over the reef into the relatively calm waters
of the lagoon.
Meanwhile the mast was broken, too in the process.
The little sailor thanked his Lord, loosened his shackles and looked around.
The beach was not far away and he decided to swim across. But after a few
strokes, he decided to turn back and grab a large flap of the tattered sailcloth
that was still hanging from the mast, because he was afraid it might get a
little too chilly in the wind.
When he finally reached the beach, he pulled his knife from his belt and cut
himself out of the sailcloth:
a T-shirt
(All you need when you are asked to tell the story from the south seas:
A rectangular piece of writing paper to fold into a sailboat.)