What I’m about to tell you is going to sound like I’m crazy in the head but I swear it is true.
We’re two hours away from Greenland in calm waters watching the fog lift and sun come up and the forecas’l hails a vessel. We’re nervous as hell cause we think it’s another Kraut U-Boat. We’ve got a couple of heavy guns we swapped in the usual way off Africa and we tear the tarps off ‘em like we’re in the Navy and I lock the mechanism on my gun and out of the fog I see this huge dragon with red eyes coming right over the bow.
A dragon, I mean, it scared the hell out of me. Try to picture this, if you will, a dragon’s head the size of a horse coming right at you out of the fog, painted up to look real fierce.
Well I cut loose. I cut the thing in half with that gun. Big 54s cutting through it like axes. Men were screaming. The thing didn’t ram us so much as bump into our rails but we shredded her down to the water.
When it was done and the smoke and the fog were blowing away we see it’s a Viking ship. A Viking ship. And there are dead Vikings all over it. Vikings with their guts hanging out, their legs blown off, their heads gone. The whole boat is coated in a brown, red sticky mess. There are animals exploded all over the deck. There’s a screaming horse with his guts hanging out trying to stand up and in the middle of it, walking towards us, is this Viking, six five if he’s an inch. He’s got a black and grey beard and a football helmet looking hat on his head and his legs are strapped up but other than that he’s almost naked. Except for the axe.
This Viking walks to the front of his boat and stares at us. Just wild eyed and pissed off. He’s breathing like he just ran a mile with his pack on and then he stands up tall and proud and sings, I swear to God, he sings, Then he whirls that axe over his head real heavy and real fast and throws it at us. It took Jaspers right in the face. He dropped down on his ass, trying to squeeze his head back together before he died and that Viking bastard was trying to jump onto our boat but Whitfield cut him in half with his 54. Just blew him into a spray.
We burned the boat. The captain didn’t want anyone to know we had these guns and worse, people would think we were crazy and he’d never get a decent crew again.
That Viking’s eyes were on fire when we hit him. But that’s not what bothers me. What bothers me is that song. I can’t get it out of my head. I’m only writing you now because I’m hoping someone will be able to tell me what it means. Six months I’ve been hearing this song. I can’t sleep.
Een fron milderhair ock mon.
If you can just translate this, I would be most grateful.
Sincerely;
J.G.
****
So the sailors talking my papa. Sailors thinking Kristobol sleeping now. Not bomb sleeping. Bed sleeping. Sailor guys talking shh shh my papa. My papa talking hard back. Sailor guys making posta flat on table. They yelling. Papa yelling. I act sleeping. Sailor guys yelling papa G.I. Joe! G.I.Joe! Papa yelling. Papa making fight. Sailor guys pointing words in posta. What guns! Where guns! Spy! Sailor guys making papa eating posta. Shooting papa. Making papa swim dead.
“What kind of story is that, Kris?”
“I say true, Philipe. I say true. Kristobol hating American guy manys days. Keeping letter.”
“Well I’m sorry that—“
There’s a thunk at the back of the boat and Phil, shaken up by Kristobol’s mean story, turns aft. A dark boat is there and a dark man leaps lightly onto the deck. Other men follow.
“Hey Phil,” Kris crackles.
“Yeah,” Phil whispers.
“Saying hello.”
In the dim light of the dark boat’s cabin, Phil makes out a toothy grin.
Men swarm the boat. Phil doesn’t say a word. One of them comes right into the cabin and says “Ola, Philipe” and opens the hatch. He takes the cell phone, the GPS handheld, the cash and the bottle of Mescal his dad keeps there. They hustle Phil to the spare dingy and toss him in, then they set the cabin on fire. As he drifts away, listening to them drinking and standing on his boat while it burns, as he’s maybe sixty feet away, crouched in the dingy crying, the men all suddenly stop--
Phil yells: “Kristobol, your story sucks!”
--a man walks up onto the deck holding his head. Phil’s eyes go wide and he mouths a word he will never say again as he hears his father’s confused, shaky voice:
“Phil, what the fuck are you doing in the—“
Three shots from the cabin of the dark boat cut him down, shadowgraphed by shadowy men and a glowering blaze.
***
“What are you trying to do?!” the kid yells. He lets go of Auggie and flails at his shoulder. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?! What’s wrong with you!”
Auggie snaps back into focus.
“God, kid. I got carried away. It was such a good idea.”
“Good idea? Everybody dies and some guy got hit in the face with an axe? You’re sick!”
“I don’t . . . “
“That was so mean. I thought everyone was going to be ok. But the dad died then the kid’s dad died, then the kid was lost at sea just like we are.”
“Except he was in a boat.”
“Oh my God!” the kid is livid. “You’re the grown up. You’re supposed to be distracting me, telling me stories about all the people who’ve been saved. Why don’t you just start telling shark stories!”
Auggie glowers into the dark. He wonders if dawn will ever get there, if he’ll ever see the end of this day. He wants to shove the kid off his arm and start swimming. He doesn’t feel heroic.
As the kid’s anger subsides, he finally grows too tired and he snuggles his little boy’s head into the crook of Auggie’s neck and even in the cool waters, Auggie can feel the warm spark in the boy’s blood.
The tip of a gray fin pops up out of the water like a warning finger.
He cradles the boy’s head against him and sheds silent terror stricken tears. His body explodes a tiny little nuclear bomb of fear. All the colors invert and the sea and sky turn white and his soul ejects itself skyward to avoid the obvious, forcibly removing the sleeping soul of the boy.
Hovering a hundred feet over the seething white waves, the pale tips of the shark’s fins and the foam are reversed to black squiggles that writhe together like long forgotten ancient script. It looks like a page from a book.
“Shit,” he whispers to himself, not wanting to wake the boy’s soul. “This would be a kick ass story.”
###
About the Author
Bull Garlington is an author and syndicated humor columnist whose work appears in various literary magazines, including Slab, Bathhouse, and the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. He was the humor columnist for Chicago Parenting, New York Parenting, Michiana Parent, Tulsa Parent, Birmingham Parent, and Carolina Parent. He is co-author of the popular foodie compendium, The Beat Cop’s Guide to Chicago Eats. Garlington’s features have appeared in newspapers and magazines across the nation since 1989; he won the Parenting Media Association’s Silver Award for best humor article in 2012. His book, Death by Children, was a 2013 book of the year finalist for the Midwest Publishers Association, and was named 2013 Humor Book of the Year by the prestigious Industry standard, ForeWard Reviews.
Other books by this author
Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other short stories by Bull Garlington:
Bullfighter
Largemouth Bass
Many Boats on the Night Ocean
Reliquary
Gone
Jenny’s Parents Are Cool
Out
Birdhouse
Lucky Jim
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