1/3. "I was taking a shower the other day, and I had a thought."Mick said. "Look. There was a sailor who lived in his little shack on the shore of a tidal river. One day, he found a mysterious steel rectangular among the shells.
"That fateful day when I found that thingy was a landmark day in my life!" he would later say. But he didn't think much of it that day. Basically, I can't say he was a smart or literate person. He largely smoked a pipe, drank, fished. Sometimes he went crabbing. He liked his dissipated life spent in bars.
Sometimes the sailor, lest he starve to death, would take his lorry, laden with fish to the local market and sell it for ten dollars apiece. He spent almost all the money he earned on booze. When he got drunk, the thing he liked to talk about most was his ship.
"It was a great vessel! After all, its gross displacement was 43 tons! Or even 430 tons! It doesn't matter, anyway. When my vessel was afloat, I caught a lot of fish! Even when the strong winds blew my ship ashore! On those days when I embarked on my ship, I forgot about everything! I loved to hoist the American ensign on my ship at dawn! It waved so beautifully in the wind! After that, I could stand for hours looking out the porthole. I could wander around the stern and look out to sea."
When the sailor recalled the shipwreck, he became very sad and almost cried,
"So sadly, one day the ship went off course and accidentally came across a mine. That damned mine tore out a sizable t piece of the ship's hull! The hold began to fill with water rapidly. It was useless to bail it out - the ship was very big. So, I threw myself into the water. Everything I had was submerged and beyond salvage. I almost drowned! Fortunately, the waves washed me up ashore. After the wreck, my beloved vessel was taken to some harbor, and I never saw it again..."
That evening he stumbled out of the bar drunk as f**k. He walked for a while, then leaned against a lamppost so as not to fall. At that moment there was a violent shuffling sound, the peony bush shuddered, and the sailor straightened up. He wanted to walk over and take a closer look, but at that moment he found that his hair had become lustrous and his clothes were shiny.
"My father is Poseidon, and my mother is a mermaid!" he said in horror. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a rectangular thing. It was shiny, too! The sailor could see all around him as if everything was illuminated by a limelight! Then he saw a bright circle in midair. Even though he was drunk, he was very frightened and thought the circle was a great menace to him. He started running around like a loony moose!"
"Loony Moose!" repeated I after Mick and laughed. "That's a funny and ingenious joke!"
"Thanks! When he got home, he first locked the door with the latch," Mick continued. "But then he decided that wasn't enough, so he put a big padlock on the door."
"I drink to relax, to enjoy. Delusional scary things are the least I want to see."
With trembling hands, the sailor picked up his phone and called his brother, who was in the local militia. The sailor told him everything, but his brother didn't believe him and thought it was all a drunken joke or a mockery of him. A late-night call aroused the brother, and he was disgruntled with it.
"Just put yourself in my shoes!" he said, and the sailor noticed a rising hint of exasperation in his voice. "How would you act if you got a call from some drunkard in the dead of night?"
"Do not use that derogatory term toward me! I consider that word an insult! And anyway, I just like to drink neat rum and vodka sometimes, that's all. I'm not addicted to alcohol!".
"You're just a mean-spirited coward! And you always adhere to complete and utter deniability!"
"And all I hear from you is taunts and stinging rebukes!"
"You have lost all sense of decency!" shouted the brother. "If you are not going to desist from liquor, I shall be forced to take drastic measures! I promise you that I will send my boys to you and give them orders to detain you! And your detention will be tough!"
"I must hang up, his nerves are cracking," thought the sailor. He was resentful by such treatment, but decided not to brawl anymore. Besides, his brother was fond of reacting quickly, drastically and unequivocally. The sailor hung up the phone and fell asleep. The next morning his whole fishing village changed. And strange things began to happen..."
"Like what?" exclaimed I.
"I have not yet come up with that," said Mick.
THE END