Home Fish
by grimbeau
Rum cove was mill pond smooth that eve. The dray men laughed too loud for easy air. Water lapped hollow on the inlet. How far out is safe to row, both mulled. Still meant ill, sounds carry gurgles, echoes travel, stealthy, slurred.
—Spruce up your caboose with the neck of a goose! Said Mullins, brandishing his cutlass mock threatening a now or never pose.
Music bathed the gloopy ether. Seagulls squawked indifference. A sacrifice most Tuesdays if I feed the shumbunkin corn flakes, a shag sneered wracked by hawthorn
—Said seabass emerged its mammy’s lug, two full moons late, a guttersnipe once told us on the promenade, left lug mind the right were grommet bunged. No exit, clearly posted, neon flashes, AC wired…
—From sinister portals, indeed. Chewed over down the years, and thus delivered, ‘Hi, tis I, chance of sip of your sup?’ Beggar off big brute, I’ll have yer…’
—Guts for gators, probed a scoopers face. Who he? One or tother. Why it matters not. Time for the Klaxon hoot?
Klaxon Hooted. A bottle rocked up. The message read:
All their life was regulated not by laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their free will and pleasure. They rose from bed when they pleased, and drank, ate, worked, and slept when the fancy seized them. Nobody woke them; nobody compelled them either to eat or to drink, or to do anything else whatever. So it was that Gargantua had established it. In their rules there was only one clause:
DO WHAT YOU WILL
because people who are free, well-born, well-bred, and easy in honest company have a natural spur and instinct which drives them to virtuous deeds and deflects them from vice; and this they called honour. When these same men are depressed and enslaved by vile constraint and subjection, they use this noble quality which once impelled them freely towards virtue, to throw off and break this yoke of slavery. For we always strive after things forbidden and covet what is denied us.[20]:159
—Book twenty! Blimey there’s a tome. Mullins was flummoxed. Perks lingered over it, identifying Rabelais, but why now of all times. It was, he concluded, for diplomatic purposes, a red herring.
—It’s nothing. Let’s go home.
~
Some sort of sick kick from it must they get. Must be. Perverse. Inaudible mutters, more than a mime. Stop. Crank it again. Whassat he said, marzipan muel. More bloody pop-ups, start up of the day, the sec I go near it, starts egging you on, near to dare and down the stair. Magic pen beats all. Screens are for mere tourists, juss look at ArseboooK. Ulterior motives, but how I diverge. Indian summer of the Tory Party it seems. Dangerfield did it for the Libs. Farewell Georgiana, brief encounters with bliss on the grounds of a country piles. You know I met Lloyd George? Yes me father told me when I was knee high to a kneecap. Stop. Oint of it I ask you. that was eerily early the mist that was. Turd stone from the sundial. Judd blink & youd mishit. Bollox to Bognor ignored. South of a bog. Stands it thus up for reason? Process of elimination, my weird Watson. Je never said that thought I will. I know. Know. Know. kNow. Comma. Odd the things that float past. Waters off Cloyne/ Good stretch of the shanks. Hit anything now. You could always put a light on. What. Break up such bliss. Stay in touch. Of course or perhaps. Sure youre a lang aukd time lone sun. Down to the cardboard. In mere wheeze dan won. Get gone with you. juss being sillier. Look Ma no hands! And various other bits. Attstops inbetwean. Love comes in spurts. Buy one get one free. Death on the High Street. Peepul turn ahey. Selfies with my new friend DDearDept. Lokk wow it trndz. So now lingo gets born. A gnu renascence occludes.
Broke the ice. Just slipped out. Automatically. Reports dismissed on artifificial grounds. Wrong fonts condemned. Matter of decorum. Costume & Rickets. Mere Methodolology. Sjould be a Church of it. On. Ward. Armies argue over refs. Wrong type of earrings. Lackings of the daisical dEpartntt. Not future innit. Means mean ends. Conveyancing. Xtian soil dryers Todays lesson a swiped from the Book of Herman Two Sticks. Drumroll maestro pleeze. Bugger Bognor Bbackwards. Hard act to follow. Famous lasts. Me or the wallpaper beyond my means sod under another sod under. Blessems all. Ashtrays to ashtrays. Divil first by a nose. O’Himmel Heaven’s Above put that down. Fetlock snap. Juss bending down to pick up a peashot. Pop! That’s your lot pal. Here’s some teeth to gnash while wailing. Much obliged was he?
A bum’s tear it was appeared, attracted a caskful of stares, cleaved, spigotted, deerstalkered, up for the ruse, no soft feelings you understand, throbbing nasal duct, something in my eye precursor of girly weepies, matinee idol what fell from Grace. What was he doing on her & herself a married wannabe. Book of Life lies open. Untouched by humane hands on yonder coffee table. Walnut inlaid, caryatids adrorned. Grapes’n’all Lot of time input, hobbies take. Tender acts of wooden love. Down memory lame in splint. See who that is coming up. Bugger me the bishop Ric. Late of Bath and Wells. Jaunty little mancub. Tells frquent tells of pewstuff mishaps. Ups and downs. Exercise really. Stand up Stiffs turn left on the way out. That’s you told, milady. Conscripted belligerent over traces kicks. Bit off more than is proven chewable. Gumshield orange peel on linoleum. Never failed me yet. Charming ickle mancub. No sado of a doubt about it. Dribbling desert wine in the naval cavity of Dr. Sop. Fortify the under fours he said. Whatever gets you through the night Kris. Mantle of moi dreams…from hair shaked but never stern. Ummm…