The Mermaid Variations by Hughes Rhys

Author:Hughes, Rhys [Hughes, Rhys]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Rhys Hughes
Published: 2012-02-03T20:00:00+00:00

The Traveller discovered he couldn’t bear to live with a giant lovespoon blocking his stairs. For one thing it made going to bed or to the bathroom impractical, and he had nowhere else to keep it, so he reluctantly decided to get rid of the thing. But he didn’t want to cut it up and he didn’t want to leave it to rot in the street. It occurred to him it might be nicer to drag it to the beach and burn it on the sand. That was more dignified and symbolic of something, a romantic gesture too. Had he known who to ask, he may have thrown a party at the same time, but as it was he’d be alone. He took a bag of crumpets to toast on the flames.

It was one hour before midnight when he set off from his house with the huge wooden spoon behind him. He hauled it along with a rope over his shoulder and it scraped and clattered dreadfully on the wet pavements so that lights in dark houses snapped on and curtains twitched as people woke to see what was making the din. But he arrived at the beach in due course without major incident and found a spot near the waves and with newspaper and matches he tried to set it ablaze. But the rain put out every lick of fire, the rain that never seemed to stop, and soon he had run out of matches. So he changed his plan.

He pushed the lovespoon out to sea, just as if it was a canoe, or more accurately a catamaran, for it had two hulls. As he ran through the foam, he acted on impulse. Instead of letting go, he jumped onto the handle of one of the spoons and began paddling. Then he pulled himself along into one of the shallow bowls and sat there panting. Already the city was no more than a sprinkling of lights. He was heading out to sea on a strange current in a stranger vessel at the mercy of a highly contrived plot. This presented special problems. Not only had he embarked on a new voyage sooner than expected and with no money and few supplies, but he risked ending up in a surprise twist ending.

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