Monday, May the 10th, 2004
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A Chewist text using a passage from Bulfinch's Mythology as its source. Infelicities of tense, from present to past and back again, can be laid squarely at Bulfinch's door. For a definition of Chewism, see 2nd March.
The HMS Clairvoyant Pig is setting out on a dangerous mission, and its captain is bilious. Meanwhile they glide out of the harbour, and the breeze plays among the ropes. The captain sits in his cabin, puffing aimlessly into his tuba, for he is not a musical man. The seamen draw in their oars, and hoist their sails. The ferocious geese that the purser's nephew insisted on bringing with him have been penned in an impromptu pen for ferocious geese. When half or less of their course was passed, as night drew on, the sea began to whiten with swelling waves, and the east wind to blow a gale. The captain blew a prolonged discordant note into his tuba as a signal for the ship's master, to whom he left the running of the ship. The master gave the word to take in sail, but the storm forbade obedience, for such is the roar of the winds and waves his orders are unheard. One of the geese has managed to peck its way out of the pen. The men, of their own accord, busy themselves to secure the oars, to strengthen the ship, to reef the sail. None of them has a clue about the true nature of the mission, which is to plop their cargo into holes dug on the beach of the Island of Doctor Flap. While they thus do what to each one seems best, the storm increases. In his cabin, the captain looks bewildered and sad. The shouting of the men, the rattling of the shrouds, and the dashing of the waves, mingle with the roar of the thunder. Both geese and men shudder uncontrollably. The swelling sea seems lifted up to the heavens, to scatter its foam among the clouds; then sinking away to the bottom assumes the colour of the shoal—a Stygian blackness. So it was, on that evil Thursday two centuries ago…