The roaring ocean tossed me about like a giantess with a sensual dwarf. The rain lashed me battered face, soothing the sunburn till the salty once again fertilised the pain in me cheeks.
Twas only the blinding sheets of lightning that granted me a slight sight of me destination. At the first flash I thought I saw a giant chicken bearing down on a tumescent squid. It flashed again and the poultry were gone, leaving but an island. I barely made it ashore, and I was grateful to the carpet of mating crabs which drew me over the sands with their undulating and left me half-buried in their crustaceous seed.
I lived amongst them for three years, till I outgrew the largest shell they had. With the shell stuck upon me I struck out for human society once more. I left behind two wives and a thousand younglings. Man were not hard to find, for I’d been living in me hermit shell not half a mile from the nearest village. They’d railed against me evil for months and I’d earned a small stipend from me work as a bogey man, terrifying infants should they wander into caves and such. I stayed away out of shame and I’d little keenness to return. However, with ye crabs’ recent social evolutions I were no longer welcome.
I sought out a friendly local to aid me in shedding me cumbrous shell. I was so distracted by the hunchbacky pain me personal caravan was causing me that until the blacksmith and his daughter had eased me out of the case I’d taken little note o’ me surroundings. A shudder passed down me twisted spine, poppin’ me vertebral moulding out of its conical shape. Upon the wall of the quaint cottage (by which I mean run-down and pestilential) and indeed across the laps of me charitable metallurgists was a sight I’d hoped never to lay me eye upon again.
I managed to mask me gasp with the syncopated chiropractic clickety-pops of becoming erect. Even as I wavered on me feet, me spine no longer suited to straight-forward standin’, ye crude willow-weave merkin clung to the wall, mocking me with its gash-sash. Perhaps it were too soon for human company. I awkwardly bellowed me thanks and ran side-wise out of the hovel.
For more o’ the merkin adventures, read Captain Pigheart All Washed Up.
