the foreshore, no one had a clue from what anchorage the mariner might have originally pulled up his anchor and set his sail. This truth was just a mere speck of dust in the minds of Uptown, and the speck was roaming, growing into something else altogether. Uptown being different to everyone else, never let the truth stop a good story from circulating around when there was time to chew the fat.
The chitchatting was like a strong wind along the foreshore. The people of Uptown talked and talked and never cared two flaming hoots if anyone was listening, and there were people listening. There were the old Pricklebush people who kept the chronicles of the land hereabouts since time began. They were talking in lingo about the huddling of the house flies they were noticing up along the beach. These old people were saying how paradoxically foolish of Uptown with their airs and fancies to equate this miracle with the beliefs of the original founding people of the seaport of Desperance. You only needed to take one look and you could see yourself that most of them white folk, about twenty or thirty adults and twice the children standing up on the high ground there – a half a foot above the new sea level – were hand-me-down generations who were nothing like a patch of the original stock: And thank goodness for small mercies. You could have counted on one hand who amongst Uptown had even been on the sea.
These people are not any good. They don’t believe in God , the old people explained, because knowing the seas, even far from the Great Southern Land, they referred to the seafarer as a descendant of English gods.
They don’t even remember their own religion.
All the Uptown white folk stood well back from the water’s edge because if you could read their thoughts, you would know how frightened they were of sea water. This was how it should be: water could jump right out and suck anyone in the undertow of blackness and a terrible death. Up high then, they gathered, all nodding and gesturing self-righteously to each other in their fashionable proclamations of how they could recognise straightaway any old so-and-so who lived by the sea. You could hear their voices wafting in the wind westward down the beach, saying things like the old sailors would, like – Even anyone, even every child of the Port, could recognise a sea man when they see one coming.
On this long, fine morning, they recognised the mariner’s harsh golden skin as their own. Ah! Ah! and Ole la la! exclaimed one, two and three female voices, possibly more, when sighting that shiny skin glowing like torchlight whenever a spot of sunlight escaped through the clouds to beam upon him. A fine looking skin . Someone describing this kind of skin said it could only belong to a sea man because for one thing, he was not coloured – not black or yellow for instance .
His hair, long and tatted, was the colour of the antarctic snow. Sometime, long ago, it became bleached from canary yellow in wild winds and seawater salt in his voyages on oceans far and wide. The cantata further proclaimed as though he were a priest: He cometh soon, a paragon, the quintessential old man of the sea himself . Some folk thereabout Desperance had already claimed to have seen giant serpents in the sea so the magical appearance of the sea man was calming compared to stories like that. Others said the lost mariner resembled a perfect human pearl amidst his tangles of ornaments. He was like Jonah with cockle-shells, green seaweed and starfish enmeshed together in a crown of snow. They noticed in his eyes a piercing sea-grey glare of bewilderment. Oh! Well sung the oracle: I repeat, there is nothing to fear from being a stranger to the Great Southern Land . They sang praises. Please put him at ease , cried all. How ears burned down in the Pricklebush: So in their dreams , they murmured.
You got to believe what was true in the homes of Desperanians. A folktale of ancient times elsewhere was stored in
The chitchatting was like a strong wind along the foreshore. The people of Uptown talked and talked and never cared two flaming hoots if anyone was listening, and there were people listening. There were the old Pricklebush people who kept the chronicles of the land hereabouts since time began. They were talking in lingo about the huddling of the house flies they were noticing up along the beach. These old people were saying how paradoxically foolish of Uptown with their airs and fancies to equate this miracle with the beliefs of the original founding people of the seaport of Desperance. You only needed to take one look and you could see yourself that most of them white folk, about twenty or thirty adults and twice the children standing up on the high ground there – a half a foot above the new sea level – were hand-me-down generations who were nothing like a patch of the original stock: And thank goodness for small mercies. You could have counted on one hand who amongst Uptown had even been on the sea.
These people are not any good. They don’t believe in God , the old people explained, because knowing the seas, even far from the Great Southern Land, they referred to the seafarer as a descendant of English gods.
They don’t even remember their own religion.
All the Uptown white folk stood well back from the water’s edge because if you could read their thoughts, you would know how frightened they were of sea water. This was how it should be: water could jump right out and suck anyone in the undertow of blackness and a terrible death. Up high then, they gathered, all nodding and gesturing self-righteously to each other in their fashionable proclamations of how they could recognise straightaway any old so-and-so who lived by the sea. You could hear their voices wafting in the wind westward down the beach, saying things like the old sailors would, like – Even anyone, even every child of the Port, could recognise a sea man when they see one coming.
On this long, fine morning, they recognised the mariner’s harsh golden skin as their own. Ah! Ah! and Ole la la! exclaimed one, two and three female voices, possibly more, when sighting that shiny skin glowing like torchlight whenever a spot of sunlight escaped through the clouds to beam upon him. A fine looking skin . Someone describing this kind of skin said it could only belong to a sea man because for one thing, he was not coloured – not black or yellow for instance .
His hair, long and tatted, was the colour of the antarctic snow. Sometime, long ago, it became bleached from canary yellow in wild winds and seawater salt in his voyages on oceans far and wide. The cantata further proclaimed as though he were a priest: He cometh soon, a paragon, the quintessential old man of the sea himself . Some folk thereabout Desperance had already claimed to have seen giant serpents in the sea so the magical appearance of the sea man was calming compared to stories like that. Others said the lost mariner resembled a perfect human pearl amidst his tangles of ornaments. He was like Jonah with cockle-shells, green seaweed and starfish enmeshed together in a crown of snow. They noticed in his eyes a piercing sea-grey glare of bewilderment. Oh! Well sung the oracle: I repeat, there is nothing to fear from being a stranger to the Great Southern Land . They sang praises. Please put him at ease , cried all. How ears burned down in the Pricklebush: So in their dreams , they murmured.
You got to believe what was true in the homes of Desperanians. A folktale of ancient times elsewhere was stored in
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