When I was a lad I sailed under Captain Squall a rough old sea dog who was as wrinkled as he was mean. Which was a lot. He could make a Sharpe look smooth as ice. He was known to flog his crew for the least bit of tom foolery. Nothing ever upset him. Not the time the living vines of the Indian Ocean entangled the ship; nor the time the walrus of Doom howled our names as we crossed the Bering Strait. Nothing except one thing. And that one thing twasn’t nothing!
We were going round Tierra Del Fuego in the upside end of the world when the air got quiet and the sea got stupid. The waves were a churning and the whole sky turned green. Well the crew started to go ape. That is to say they grew hair and started to walk on their knuckles. I’d never seen such a sight I beat my chest and ook-ooked in fear. Suddenly ole Captian Squall burst from his berth with a can of Fresca. He shook the can and sprayed us all. The freshing diet grapefruit soda stopped us from transforming into beasts.
Once we regained our sentience and sense I asked the Captain what was happening. He slapped me for looking him in the mouth, which is a great offense to the old guard. Then his voice turned soft. Like a vibrating whisker of an otter. He pointed his scleroderma affected finger off portside at a strange sight.
The whole crew stood dumbstruck as we watched a thousand porpoises with purpose jump from the sea at once. They were surrounding a small glowing speck. What were it? Some bit of algae? The lure of an angler fish? No! Twas the Ur-Shrimp. The master leader of all shrimp. Oh his story is long and mad. But I knew then to even approach this crustacean would be death! No wonder the world was going crazy. The little glowing shrimp stopped it’s travel, all the purpose filled porpoises stopped. It turned it’s eyestalk toward us. We shivered as if our timbers were iced. Then it plunged below the surface. It was gone and the world was right once more.
None of us spoke of the incident again. But every year on the anniversary of that date. THIS VERY DAY! My boys and I go to the Skin and Bones tavern and drink fermented crab juice until the horrible image of that beast is wiped from our brains for a few precious hours. But now you know. And if you know about the Ur-Shrimp you can never be safe! Take that you land-suckers!
Give my best to the Mary Celeste,
Captain Kraken.
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