Monday, January the 3rd, 2005

back to: title, date or indexes

hear this 

In a Cabin, on a Ship

In a cabin, on a ship, steaming into harbour, were two glum men. No. The ship was steaming away from the harbour, or port, a port whose name ended in -dam. Do not try to guess which port I refer to, for your brain will become dizened by the effort, and if you were an animation, little tweeting birds would circle around your head, such would be your befuddlement. I know whereof I speak, so trust me.

This ship, now, the HMS Important And Grandiose Flying Many Flags, had gravitas, if we can ascribe gravitas to a ship, and as it steamed out of the port of -dam it had many, many flags flying. Some of the flags were blue, a cerulean blue like the best skies on the most gorgeous summer days. If you stare at the bright sky on such a day for long enough, you will see that the air is teeming with spirits, as multitudinous as flakes in a snowstorm, according to a French person called Leo Suavius. And look! Many of the flags flying from the ship, those that are blue and those of other shades, have pictures of angels on them. You may scan the flags as carefully as you wish, but you will not find a skull-and-crossbones hidden among them, for this is not a pirate ship.

Is or was? I fear I have veered from the past tense to the present without explanation. Unless I am careful we shall hurtle into the future, and what is intended to be a sober piece of reportage will become science fiction, and you will toss it aside with a harrumph of displeasure, for if I know you well, dear reader, you would rather have me tell you of that which is prosaic and mundane than be titillated with intergalactic space rockets captained by alien beings called Thargon, zapping x-ray beams at inexplicable foes whose very geometry is unearthly.

Once, when I had time to spare, and the ship was still in port, I tried to count all those magnificent flags and found that I could never arrive at an exact number. Perhaps there were sailors aboard hoisting and lowering them so rapidly that I did not see. I did not have a pair of binoculars in those days. Indeed, I still don't, for what use would they be to a Cyclops like me, whose left eye was damaged during the Munich Air Disaster? I shall tell you about that another time.

For now, picture that ship, with its serried blue flags and its innumerable angels, steaming out of -dam, and two glum men in a cabin below decks. The door is closed. The cabin has two portholes, and they are of frosted glass, for no particular reason. One of the gloomy men is sitting on an upper bunk, dangling his spindly legs over the side. When he used to laugh, years ago, he sounded like a bronchial horse, and indeed he suffered terribly from bronchitis and often, on his daily rounds, walked past a field in which a tremendous number of horses were put out to fallow, if that is the correct word. I don't think it is, but I shall let it stand, I am in that kind of mood. But that was long ago. Now, glum and emaciated, he sits on the bunk in a cabin of the ship of many flags and clears his throat. He is about to introduce himself to the other miserable man in the cabin, who has just come in, slamming the door behind him.

This second man is wearing atop his pulsating cranium a dippy hat. For the last few hours he has been thinking, thinking so damn hard, about ducks, for that is the sort of man he is. He wants to complete a catalogue of duck markings, duck behaviour and duck habitats, but has been unable to work on it for a while as he has sprained his wrist and cannot write. This accounts for his glumness, and also for his sling. The sprain occurred when he was trying to unscrew the jammed lid from a jar of hoodie-maroodie paste.

We might ask, at this point, the cause of the other man's gloom, the man on the bunk who used to laugh like a horse long, long ago. Sadly, his interior life is a thing of mystery, to me at any rate.

From bulkhead to poop-hatch, instructions are being shouted back and forth by the ship's crew. The mighty sun is gleaming bronze. Flags are flying and the sky is alive with auks and terns and guillemots. Below decks in the gloomy cabin, the two men reluctantly greet each other. This was the historic moment when Blodgett met Dobson.