mini-story
A short idea I had in April of this year.
Five men on a boat. Sailing toward home on their last hope, knowing their world has already been devastated by the forces of the enemy. Another ship appears alongside them-none of them saw it approach.
One of the five men is telling this story to a campfire of men.
“And in the boat was the man responsible for the tidal waves and fires that had destroyed our homeland. I’m not sure if all the lads recognized him right away. But he seemed jolly, speaking to us about the weather and wondering why we were sailing toward a broken land. About that time, as our craft floated toward his at a different angle, we all noticed a spit-on a ship of all places! And on the spit was a headless human body.”
The crowd gasped and the sailor continued, “That was when we knew he would never allow us to survive.”
He let the crowd think on that for a moment, think of how helpless the five men must have been on the boat. They knew only a few feet of water separated them from the devil, and they knew that he had every intention of preparing a slow, agonizing death for each of them. They had never heard of one of his victims escaping quickly into death’s embrace. The desperation on the boat must have been running high, and surely at least one of the men would have gone mad just contemplating the death awaiting him at the devil’s hands.
“Immediately, Terrance collapsed in the back corner. He kept whispering ‘No, no, no, no’ over and over again. Another of the men, I can’t remember who, dived overboard, knowing that would hardly save him. Methinks he meant to try to drown himself.”
“How did you survive?” one of the men around the campfire finally asked.
“By Shenara’s grace alone.” There was muttering around the fire at that. Too many believed her to be nothing more than a myth, especially in these hard times.
“She appeared out of nowhere herself, naked as a sea serpent. And when I say ‘she,’ you men must know I only mean her face. Her body was as featureless as a baby girl’s.”
A man guffawed and said “You mean neither bump nor bulge, nor any sign of hair?”
He shook his head with a wry smile on his face. “Truer words were never spoken, my friend. Her hair was a deep green, like the sea grass the poor man eats, and her skin was a light shade of blue, like the clearest ocean water. She looked at the devil, and he cringed. He cringed! That was when we knew we would survive.
“She scared the devil off with a few words in a language I have never had the pleasure of hearing, not in all my travels. Then she turned and her dark eyes took in the four of us. She lifted a hand and whoever had jumped in the water rose out of it toward us, screaming his lungs out because he thought it was the devil that had him in his grasp. When he saw who it really was, he dropped to the planks with the rest of us, kneeling before her. Before any of us dared look directly at her, she had disappeared, and a few fish lay flopping on ship. We wasted no time in eating them, of course.”
Five men on a boat. Sailing toward home on their last hope, knowing their world has already been devastated by the forces of the enemy. Another ship appears alongside them-none of them saw it approach.
One of the five men is telling this story to a campfire of men.
“And in the boat was the man responsible for the tidal waves and fires that had destroyed our homeland. I’m not sure if all the lads recognized him right away. But he seemed jolly, speaking to us about the weather and wondering why we were sailing toward a broken land. About that time, as our craft floated toward his at a different angle, we all noticed a spit-on a ship of all places! And on the spit was a headless human body.”
The crowd gasped and the sailor continued, “That was when we knew he would never allow us to survive.”
He let the crowd think on that for a moment, think of how helpless the five men must have been on the boat. They knew only a few feet of water separated them from the devil, and they knew that he had every intention of preparing a slow, agonizing death for each of them. They had never heard of one of his victims escaping quickly into death’s embrace. The desperation on the boat must have been running high, and surely at least one of the men would have gone mad just contemplating the death awaiting him at the devil’s hands.
“Immediately, Terrance collapsed in the back corner. He kept whispering ‘No, no, no, no’ over and over again. Another of the men, I can’t remember who, dived overboard, knowing that would hardly save him. Methinks he meant to try to drown himself.”
“How did you survive?” one of the men around the campfire finally asked.
“By Shenara’s grace alone.” There was muttering around the fire at that. Too many believed her to be nothing more than a myth, especially in these hard times.
“She appeared out of nowhere herself, naked as a sea serpent. And when I say ‘she,’ you men must know I only mean her face. Her body was as featureless as a baby girl’s.”
A man guffawed and said “You mean neither bump nor bulge, nor any sign of hair?”
He shook his head with a wry smile on his face. “Truer words were never spoken, my friend. Her hair was a deep green, like the sea grass the poor man eats, and her skin was a light shade of blue, like the clearest ocean water. She looked at the devil, and he cringed. He cringed! That was when we knew we would survive.
“She scared the devil off with a few words in a language I have never had the pleasure of hearing, not in all my travels. Then she turned and her dark eyes took in the four of us. She lifted a hand and whoever had jumped in the water rose out of it toward us, screaming his lungs out because he thought it was the devil that had him in his grasp. When he saw who it really was, he dropped to the planks with the rest of us, kneeling before her. Before any of us dared look directly at her, she had disappeared, and a few fish lay flopping on ship. We wasted no time in eating them, of course.”