NEWDIE STEADSLAW

Well, anyway.

So, there was this guy named Captain A Big Sandwich Wrapped In Carpet—I know, I know, some people really do get all the luck. He started as a smallish child, something like a boy, I suppose, and did the normal schoolish things as you might, and, being named “Captain A Big Sandwich Wrapped In Carpet”, you’d think he’d blend in and be forgotten, but it wasn’t to be, for he developed a case of deviation of many sorts—to wit, he was on every sports team, dated all the girls, and was several rock bands. An outlier like this, naturally, could only fail to escape attention, and, though, mixed half and half, any negativity annihilates all positivity, and thus was he tormented mercilessly every second of his life—right up until the moment the last school bell rang, and then no one ever thunk about those shaded years ever again. Having nothing anymore, he instantly normalized, and gained a job designing wrapping paper, inventing the first unicycle, and as beans, and, after a productive tenure of a number of years—assuming that one-fourth is an acceptable number—he retore with a gold medal, took up position in the comfortable lawn chair in the backyard, and... well, that’s it, basically. He was retired now. That’s nothing more than nothing anymore.

Some time passed. Probably. In the thoughtless stillness of respite it was impossible to pin any number to it, and Captain, merciless activiant that he was, grew bored after some set of days. He elected to call his lawyers and ask if any bills were past due, so he could have the sport of fending off the collectors at least, and with gleeing thoughts toward the oncoming challenge he reached for his phone—but it was the buffet. It was only a minor puzzle, for at that moment Captain realized he was not in his backyard after all, but on the forward deck of the S. S. Dripspout, the finest ocean liner ever known to sail up or down the Amberlamped Sea, and at present it was ingaged in doing the very same. Rocking sea waves haplessly dashed themselves hullward, the rays of the sun fell like wages in the uncloudable sky, and a salty breeze pried unwelcomedly at nooks and crannies in their plentifoldity.

“Acruiser, am I?” said Captain, extracting his hands from the buffet with nothing to show for it but dekomft and waning spirituality. “That wasn’t predicted, but comes appreciated! There’s ’tirement to be found here, arights. I can make the good of this.”

Captain weighed the options of perusing the buffet, sampling the shuffleboard court, or attempting mutiny, when Prandle Steam came by and calmly handed at him one of those trifold mirrors you use when you sunbathe so you can get a tan under your chin, and said, “Better count your chickens, mate—it’s time for another day already!”

“A short jaunt,” said Captain, “for I’ve got none. The name here’s Captain. How’s by you, on another hand?”

“Me?” said Prandle. “I’m fouled aplenty! Think there’s a cap to this? Don’t catch me with any bow regard!” With that, Prandle optioned to fry some steaks so the turtles would have something to write home about. It was as suited as vermouth, unfortunately, and there was no tyrant around to see it—but all that mattered was that the dust was cleared. So, it looks like it stuck, after all.

Captain perusefully chose to join Prandle in inspecting the buffet and found in it high likability, or high-like ability, and so set up stati’ nearby, so as to ’gage in a sumptuous feast. He noted, importantly, that they had shrimp tails. If they—the buffet owners, or perhaps the personage of the buffet itself—had anything else, let that go unsaid. Have you ever actually seen a buffet, anyway? I haven’t. Who knows what they have? Probably persimmons and oeuvres and, I don’t know, horse feet. Rich people eat horse feet, right? Cruises are for rich people, after all, so, I bet the buffet had horse feet.

Nearby was Breadman Jallop, the cost rebufferer, who said to Captain, “Try something better. There—try a radish,” and added a wink, but that cost extra.

“Mine are well enough,” said Captain, not indignantly, but attemptuously manufacturing a conversement of sorts.

Jallop considered Captain’s pleasantries. “Whoa—are those limited edition?” he said.

“What?” said Captain. “No, these are home-grown!” He laughed fully.

“Ah,” said Jallop. “Wrong again, it seems.” With a sigh, he got a fresh plate from a sour hippo and returned to the front of the line.

Captain shook his head. Would retirement be so difficult in such an environ?

Then there came, as must come, Limonade Simplistic, whose hands were apocket into his jacket, and who looked this way and that until his gaze fell upon them at the buffet, and he said, “Oh, what the hell is this? Idlers? C’mon, guys. You know we can’t be having with that around here.”

Prandle and Jallop didn’t slacken to exchange a glance, but at once trotted away to the port bow and pored about, but remained wifeless for the duration. From the context, you can glean that port bow was elsewhere, unless I already said we were there, in which case it’s finally time to question your beliefs.

Captain beheld Limonade’s attention. “Well, I am one, indeed,” he said. “There’s not another goal, not anymore.”

“Yeah—about that,” said Limonade, filtering a breath. “Listen—you’re overlounged. There’s an old saying—I’ll spare you its repetition, but it spells the end of this sloth. Now it’s time to take up your spade and repay your presence, so let’s see some accomplishments!” Just so, Limonade bore a mighty shovel, and plunked it into Captain’s hands, displacing the shrimp tails he’d collected.

“What’s this?” said Captain.

“Shovel,” said Limonade.

“And what’m I meant to do with it?” said Captain.

“Shovel,” said Limonade. “C’mon, this isn’t complicated.”

“Nor is it retirement,” said Captain, “which is what was sought.”

“Sought, found, and completed,” said Limonade. “Now, as the ship’s first mate, I count as in charge, so far as you’re concerned. So, get diggin’! We’re overburdened on trash, y’know, so we need a pit beneath the bottom of the boat, deep as you can, to pitch waste into. Six hundred miles ought to be enough for now, I reckon. So it’s off to the litany deck with you, my lad!”

“Pit the boat?” said Captain. “You want the whole thing to sink?”

“Listen, bub—or bubble,” said Limonade, “there are forces at work here beyond your or my ken. I’m not one to question the meritorious quo, if you can catch my meaning.”

“I can’t,” said Captain.

“Me neither,” said Limonade. He proffered a small pail. “Here. Use this as well. They came as a set.”

Captain weighed this task and found it vexatious indeed, something unhis, and impetuously challenging—but would a man such as he turn away from such an ordealesque endeavor? Another may, indeed, for potential is fully pluralized, but in the specific? So, despite defeat intentional, Captain took up Limonade’s offer, untaking it as a command, and proceeded to the bowels of the ship where, under Limonade’s scrutiny, he dug as fine a pit as any fullsome crew could condemn. With the ease of unwaned strength he broke ground at the nadir of the ship’s hull, and in short order a pit of one mile’s depth was dug, then five miles, then fifty miles, then five hundred miles, and at last five hundred and ninety-nine miles. At then did Captain rehand the shovel and bucket to Limonade.

“Pit’s dug,” said Captain.

But Limonade used a radar detector to test the depth and found it shy a mile. “You’re shy a mile,” he said.

“And unpaid!” said Captain. “That was some volunteer work for the fun of it. You ill like it, I can refill it just as easy. Or—add your own contribution to see it maxed out to your own satisfact!”

Limonade could see the value in this, but not in the pit—that was a wholly dark spot, and seeing not an option. He mused overmuch.

“Now, if you’ll kindly excuse yourself from me,” said Captain, “I’ve got other inactivity planned.” The derailment of his retiration plans had become irksome and he wanted an end to this particular event. He departed from Limonade and resumed his place in the comfortable lawn chair—“deck chair,” we should say, seated as it was deckly.

“I’ve half a mind to call that good enough,” said Limonade. He donned a sunglass and attained himself to a chair adjacent to Captain’s. “As hinted,” Limonade said, but with increasing idleness, “I am the ship’s first mate, which you must know. Limonade Simplistic.”

“And I’m Captain,” said Captain, “as you don’t know.”

“What?” said Limonade.

And then at that moment the whole cruise ship got attacked by a pangolin.

Truth be told for once, the attack was well in progress already, and had been occurring throughout the ship heretofore, but it was only just now that it approached Captain and Limonade’s domain, and thus only now that it entered the camera’s aperture and became unavoidable, and thus the trope of exposition incurred. The pangolin, who had a broadsword, who in turn had a shotgun, burst into the wrong room twice, and then thrice—for a total of five times, if you’re counting—and then, its drama quickly draining, at last managed to burst out onto the deck and said, “Avast! It’s ’venture ’pon the high seas! And you’re all about to get got, my pals!”

One nearby oceangoer made an appropriate gasp of siren, but then quickly forgot about the pangolin and resumed rooting through the trash for cheese scraps or bottle openers—none yet, but their number was almost up. The other ’goers encompassed less shock, but more awe.

“Wait,” said the broadsword to the pangolin, “these are your pals?”

“What?” said the pangolin. “No. I’m threatening them. It’s an expression.”

“That’s not very threatening,” said the broadsword.

“It’s—look, it’s fine,” said the pangolin. “Just, just up the ante from here, okay?”

The broadsword rolled her eyes and resumed her attackful pose, leaving the dialogue—such as it was—to the pangolin.

“Put your shoelaces in the bag or I’ll shoot!” said the shotgun, menacing its self toward the milling passengeria.

“Yeah!” said the pangolin. “Yeah, that works! Very good. Shoelaces! Bag! In!”

But, they did not have a bag.

By now the ruckus had cast its echoes wide, and all nearabouts now paid attention to the pangolin and its small crew—but, that’s all they paid, for none were thoroughly convinced enough of the invaders’ abilities so as to surrender in any manner. Indeed, Captain and Limonade were on that very deck, intaking the sight of the pangolin with as much indolence as could be mustered.

“If this is a piratical attack,” said Limonade, “it’s a poor one.”

“Hence the need for the redistribution of wealth!” said the pangolin. “We wouldn’t need to rob from the rich if we weren’t poor ourselves! But, never mind that. Allow me to demonstrate my seriosity!”

With that stated, the pangolin grabbed a frying pan and a frag grenade, and popped the pin of one and gave it a toss, and set the other on the range to warm up so as to make a few scrambled eggs, since it’d missed brunch time and the buffet was probably stacked with magazines and carriage wheels by now. The grenade landed in Missus O’Oliver’s saltine bucket, seeing as how she stood at the forefront of the crowd and was closest, and all about gawked and marveled at the fine throw save the one—Captain snapped out of the comfort of his Co-Zee-Lounger, and rushed bucketward.

“Slow your steps!” said Limonade. “We don’t get paid workman’s comp!”

“Nor at all!” said Captain. “Call it a habit, if you’re calling it anything!”

Captain dashed for the bucket, and snatched it up afore the cassowaries could even arrive. Limonade was right behind him, hoping to foil this excessively heroic attempt before any lawsuits could erupt, but his fear was unfounded, for Captain used one of his unantiquated athletic capabilities, and with a mightable heave, threw away the bucket and out his back.

“My back!” cried Captain.

“My saltines!” cried Missus O’Oliver.

“My grenade!” cried the pangolin. “I only had one! That really needed to get some kills!”

“Do we need a new plan?” said the broadsword.

“Did we have an old plan?” said the shotgun.

The bucket, the grenade, and all the saltines splashed into the water, and at that very same moment, the grenade detonated. The water of the mighty ocean was grand, and absorbed that blast with aplomb, and was unharmed from it, and the saltines, in turn, absorbed the ocean’s water—part of it, I mean, there was still plenty of water left—but the absorbed part was precisely that which had itself absorbed the grenade’s power. The saltines grew both in size and strength, and floated as grand platelets, suffused with the explosivity of the grenade, a fierce force which they could call upon on whensoever they deigned to care.

The pangolin watched this sad failure from the railing, the broadsword and shotgun beside it.

“Told you this wasn’t gonna work,” said the shotgun.

“You shut up,” said the pangolin, unaverting its gaze from its tragedy. “I loved that grenade like a badger. Well, that leaves no other choices.”

The pangolin suddally equipped itself with both the broadsword and the shotgun, and wielded them as weapons, whirling and swirling about with them, and thus armed became a mighty foe. “Relinquish your wealth at twice! This remains a high-seas robbery! Shoelaces in one pile, fontanels in the other! And to prove I’m not beaten yet—”

The pangolin fired the shotgun—not like that—into the crowd, and this time successfully struck Missus O’Oliver with the entire bullet, but she was ill-informed as to what the weapon’s effects were meant to fully entail, and so, embracing the melodrama of the stage, she fainted gaudily, and got caught by some suitors, probably. The net was the pangolin didn’t really accomplish anything here—and now it would have to reload the shotgun, but, having one hand enfilled with the broadsword, that was a cumberful feat.

“Hey,” said Limonade, waving the embalmers over to the vicin’, “this guy’s plan lacks planning. You wanna get outta here?”

Captain said, “What, and abandon the buffet to ruffians? No one calls me a leaver of fights, you know!” Captain leapt to his feet—which was a gross error, what with his out-thrown back. He fell upon the Co-Zee-Lounger once more. “Retirement is the cruelest era,” he groaned.

“You’re a swelter!” said the pangolin. “I have you in my sights!” It opted not to say “prepare yourself” because, really, it was in no situation to take on an opponent that was at all prepared.

The pangolin hurled the broadsword at Captain, but Captain grabbed onto a passing trolley in the Nicholas of time, and the trolley brought him to the edge of the forest—oh, no, not the forest, sorry. That’s the engine room. The trolley brought him to the engine room. The pangolin, the broadsword, and the shotgun chased him, and Limonade soon came as well, for, as the first mate, any damages done would likely come out of his paycheck.

The engine room crowded with dark and light equally, the latter supplied by the vats of lava that powered the windmill—the rising heat from the liquefied rock invoked air currents in the chamber that bent the blades to motion. Moreover, there were lots of stylish pistons borrowed from and for movies, some great steaming pipes more plagiarized than cinematic, and one of those overhead conveyors, those chain things that ring the room with hooks dangling. Call that herring as red as it gets, though—the stage hazards don’t figure into the upcoming battle at all.

“Noisy place, ain’t it?” said the pangolin. It looked with its eyes in search of Captain.

“This must be where all the shoelaces are kept!” said the shotgun.

“Of course!” said the pangolin. “That must be how they heat the lava!”

“Oh, now, that’s clever,” said the broadsword. “See? I knew you knew how to draw!”

Captain shambled into a corner, where he used the aid of a towel rack to wrench himself footward—that is, he stood up, but without enough ease.

“The first seconds of retirement,” said Captain, “and I’ve already given myself an enduring ailment! What pity finds me so readily?”

The pangolin, the broadsword, and the now-reloaded shotgun surrounded him in a triumvirate format. The piracy had had at best mixed results afore reaching Captain’s encounterment, and thence things had turned too-far afoul to beggar acceptitude. A venge loomed.

“All right,” said the pangolin. “Broad’, stab him! Shot’, shoot him! And me—” It began to don some brass knuckles. It was too preoccupied to be awed that they still fit.

“I’ve opposed grander entourages in my day,” said Captain, “and look who’s still standing despite it!”

“If you call that standing,” said the pangolin. “And—let me clarify—I don’t.”

“Better than the lurch you bear!” said Captain.

“What the—that’s normal!” said the pangolin. “That’s how pangolins stand! Haven’t you ever seen a nature documentary?”

Now, just behind them—astern, in shipspeak—there gaped the five-hundred-and-ninety-nine-mile-deep trash pit previously dug by Captain. Yes, that’s right—it’s a Chekhov’s plot hole. Limonade had nearbiness, disinclined to join the violence, and equally disinclined to lose such a hardworking employee as Captain—but, on seeing the mere mile left to dig in the pit, Limonade novelly chose to kill the rest of his shift by actually working, and so with shovel and spade set to the labor of removing the last of the soil at the pit’s bottom, and in short order had finally breached the six-hundred-mile mark and reached the belly of the sea. The ocean beheld this M. P. O. E., and, the lust of exploration and adventure in its heart, rushed within, reaching at once the engine room, in which Captain, the pangolin, and whoever else, were still, and the ship and the ocean began their final act of unity with their flooding sequence, to which all ships must succumb in their last hour, and with the water came fish, the oil of spills, such waterbound refuse as was nearby, and perhaps one or two prophets—they hang out in stories a lot.

The pangolin, the broadsword, and the shotgun were given to panic, and in their state of panic began a full assault. The shotgun shot its bullets everywhere, but failed to hit anyone except for a few orphans, but, as they were employed as chimney sweeps, death was preferable, and at the meanwhile, the broadsword swung in wide arcs, glancing off the walls of the passages narrow, and its sharp edges cutting into wires and electrodes, such that the electrical system met with the rising seawater in a fashion sure to only further all woes. The pangolin, with its fists of brass, punched at Captain, but Captain, even in a weakened and increasingly sodden state, deflected those blows with ease.

“This is getting cromulent!” shouted the pangolin. Water gushed from too many places, making quite a scene and twice as much noise. “Move on to plan bee!”

“What’s plan bee?” said the broadsword.

“I don’t know,” said the pangolin, “so let’s leave and make one!”

The pangolin, the broadsword, and the shotgun attempted to scatter, but with flooding increasing, the whole engine room was submerged, and they were forced into random passages, becoming quickly lost, their paths confused. Captain and Limonade, as well, were forced into some untoward linen closet, which was nearly benefitless. They took a deep enough breath to last the rest of their lives.

Just then, a new object was entered into the mix: the grenade-infused-water-infused saltines were sucked up through the flooding hole, and entered the engine room. In their excitement to be reboarded to the ship, they scattered hither and yon with such speed that they collode with not only one another, but each wall, wire, and window thereabouts—and ’twas the second of that list that problemated their situ’, for, with the introduction of the energy of electrocution, their fuses were lit, and their grenadine heritage alerted from the depth of their souls.

“Is this where our destiny expires?” said the saltines. “Alas! Alack! Well, let our finale be an all-consuming spectacle! We become one with ship and shippers alike!” And then everything exploded.

But, only but—as the explosion occurred, there came a clop clop clop as from a set of horse’s hooves—or, horse feet.