Sea Monsters Matt Jones
S
28 July 20051
pent my last anchor watch wrapped around the bullring , crooning to the anchor. Now I spend my days here, by my trusty friend, the rusty fiend. Forked like the devil’s pitchfork, or the CO’s tongue. Worst part was I could hear it singing back, burbling in the depths. Crustaceans are hounding me like hounds—Alas, the leg of a lobster, the leg! Caught myself drooling. An hour had passed, by the watch. I sneezed, splattering my brains everywhere. I was on the john, legs totally numb. Am I dying, am I going to die? Nearly missed my 1800 with the OpsO, after which the music coming from the sweepdeck illuminated the clouds in coruscating waves of mauve. Amber undertones. Storm on the horizon somewhere—can’t you hear the thunder, OpsO?—he smiles but his face 2
melts off, cackling skeleton underneath. I climb into the Z-drive compartment, sometimes the bow-thruster, and beat the bones of the ship with a fire ax. Leave me alone, I cackled at three gorillas, I’m making art. Can’t you tell? I am lounging on the focsle in the palm of Neptune. He sends mermaids for my succour and smites my enemies with typhoons. He is wearing the face of my father—as he was in life, not in the casket with the purple skin. Why did you kill my father, Neptune, and take his face? Do you remember that time in Kingston when you brought my girlfriend and I shopping for groceries because we were eating bare pasta night after night? You bought us two carts of food and she was so touched she wept in the parking lot. And no flavour was crisper or colder than the beer you bought me, by way of apology, for slapping me around that night, right in front of
13.
