Sailor's Farewell

Originally appearing @ The New Absurdist (http://absurdist.cc)

The pretty pink elephants flew under the sea while the great sauerkraut boats above launched toothpick missiles at the offending beasts.

They were not so much offending as onending. Still, the Ahab Officer on Duty was not above deck without reason. They must return to port with something lest the fishing boats run out of blubber.

On and off and on and on and off they launched the the sausage-tipped spears of destiny hors d'oerves. The elephants ate greedily of the porcine buffet.

For hours and months and centuries of hours they ate. The guard was changed many times, father to son, who became a father himself, to son. So on and so forth, and so back and so off.

In time the elephants succumbed to the effects of a strictly undisciplined diet of poorly cooked-fully pork products. The razor nets were cast and the beasts were rendered into their complex components of mastodon flesh.

The bog giants did then come. With great sweeps of their of their bog sweepers, the chunks were pushed to shore. The longshoremen then gathered the massive mess in large barrels marked frajeelay. The middlemen did claim the bounty, and sold it for a wildly tame markup.

The fishermen could grease their keels again, and the wives kissed them in a sailor's farewell.

As the boats passed into the horizon, the women wept.

Gods willing, they would return in a fortnight, hulls filled to bursting with wiley chicken-o-the-sea.