Splish

Happy birthday, CyberPete! Here's your cak-

* trip *

* splat *

Drat!

~ ~ ~

I knew it wasn't going to be a good day when I tripped over and found myself flat on my face. I lifted my head to discover that things weren't just bad, they were worse... Not Brown Jelly Baby worse, thank gods. No, Cusp Interface worse, which explained the stinging sensation.
Grumbling, I attempted to get to my feet. A difficult task when the wooden floor I was sprawled on kept moving up and down. It was then I realised that it was going to be more difficult getting to my feet than I first thought. Because I didn't have any. Blast!
Instead of legs and feet, I had a good six feet of fish tail. Conger eel, if I wasn't very much mistaken. Tutting, I had a good look around. I appeared to be on an old fashioned sailing ship judging by the wooden construction and the alarming pitching and rolling. I slithered to my left and peered through a wooden railing. There, approximately 20 feet below me, was the sea. No, make that 10 feet. Actually, 17. No, 8. 22. 10 again.
A flash of lightning illuminated the surrounding water. Great. We were in the midst of a storm, complete with roiling sea and -Ow!- hailstones. Feeling quite battered and sick, I slithered back to the railing and wriggled through it, plunging into the cold, heaving sea.

Surfacing, I watched as the great ship struggled against the storm. Men swarmed over the decks and rigging, attempting to secure the sails and batten down the hatches, or whatever it was that sailors did in these circumstances. Amongst all the to-ing and fro-ing stood a solitary man dressed only in chaps, a brocaded T-shirt and a cowboy hat. A cowboy-prince? He appeared to be directing the other men, pointing and shouting above the noise of the storm. His T-shirt was soaked and, distractingly, clung to his rather impressive body!
Beams of light from the portholes drew my attention to two or three objects bobbing up and down amongst the waves not far from me. Rather maddeningly, the lightning had ceased it's stabbing in the dark so I couldn't make out what they were. And one of the objects appeared to be singing Come Into My World by Kylie Minogue, and not altogether in tune! I waited as patiently as I could for some lightning to illuminate them - I didn't want to swim over in case it was something awful, like a siren-mine or a crazed fan. After what seemed like half an hour, but was more likely two minutes, I tired of being patient and resorted to witchcraft to summon the lightning. A spell guaranteed to bring forth the electrical force formed in my mind. There were no words, only actions: I threw back my head and gave an evil laugh, a la T-Bag.
The storm conceded and a bright fork of lightning coursed through the evening sky illuminating what appeared to be mermaid/man versions of 'Petra and Piggy & Tazzy! 'Petra (the singer - somewhat obviously in hindsight) was gooily ogling the buff prince while P&T also had their sights set on him, and were rubbing themselves disturbingly.
Unfortunately, the lightning struck the ship, igniting the gunpowder for the cannons, blowing it to smithereens. Oops!



I ducked under the surface so as not to be clonked in the head by ship-based projectiles and watched from the depths as bits of ship and man rained slowly down through the cold, dark water. Occasionally, a whole man drifted by. One of them caught the 'Petra-mermaid's eye - Well, I imagine the muscles and gold brocade caught his eye - It was the cowboy-prince. He darted after him and carried him up to the surface and away...





To be continued...