Post by Grimm on Mar 27, 2006 17:22:28 GMT -5
“The greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time.”—Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz
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The empty, rusting hulks bobbed in the tide, brushing up against one another with a very annoying metallic scrape. The sound was worse than Freddy Krueger and Wolverine scraping their claws against a chalkboard at the same time. Grimm weaved his way through the ship graveyard, his kayak cutting through the oily sheen floating atop the brine. The rust and diesel was so heavy he could taste it in his mouth.
He had been taking his usual route through the marshes of Pamlico Sound when he suddenly decided to follow a clearing through the grass that he couldn’t remember ever seeing before. The channel wound its way down island, and he found the complete lack of tributaries or branches to be a little odd but not enough to make him feel that he should turn around. His paddle dipped into the water on one side then the other, his kayak cutting through the channel with ease.
But then the fog rolled in, which is shouldn’t have at this time of day, and his paddle began getting hung up on objects in the water. Something would intermittently bump the bottom of the kayak. Grimm tried to peer down through the dark waters, but all he caught was the occasional glimpse of an abandoned crab trap reflecting back at him like a dead child’s rib cage. His paddle would emerge from the water covered in slime that he knew wasn’t algae. Then the channel opened up into a wide expanse of water. It was full of looming black shapes.
He stopped paddling and drifted around the skeletonized remains of a fishing boat. Its wooden doors swung on rusted hinges, slamming open and shut with the faintest gust of wind. Faded letters spelling out Filthy Whore along the bow revealed a past owner with either a twisted sense of humor or one particularly depraved individual. Maybe both. Grimm stuck his paddle in the water in order swing around and resumed paddling once he was behind the behemoth.
A few more yards into his detour, Phinehas felt as if he needed to leave…now. Out of this forgotten boneyard and back to the familiar waters and marshlands he had traversed so many times before. Other than the grinding and slapping of water against hulls it was quiet. Uncomfortably quiet at that. Until a fog horn sounded long and funereal out there somewhere. The blast of a horn seemingly out of nowhere jogged his memory back to reality, out of the upsetting thoughts that had been plaguing him lately. If asked in the future, he would never be able to direct anyone to this site, and he himself could not find it if he wanted to, but he would swear that he witnessed figures roaming the decks of these ships. Pale, slack-jawed, covered in barnacles, seaweed embedded in their hair and eels slithering out of their wide toothless mouths and nostrils. Crabs scurrying up their water-logged limbs to pluck out eyes and nibble on flesh. He didn’t believe it at the time, but if hard pressed he would admit to it later on.
Back on the mainland, away from the salt and the sand and the never-ending expanses of water, Phinehas Grimm was a professional wrestler. He was a champion, meaning he got to tote a heavy gold belt around from week to week, and he was only a couple days away from his next match. He was scheduled to face one of the supposed big shots of the federation, one whose name he couldn’t recall at the moment, but big enough for Grimm to imagine this might be the most anticipated meeting of the night. He assumed this big-man-on-campus would have already said a few choice words about yours truly, perhaps made a prediction or two about how severely poor Grimm would be beaten, and then continued on with whatever it was those sort of people ranted about. This was all speculation, of course, for Grimm tried to watch as little television as possible and he refused to read anything resembling wrestling press. Call it a quirk if you will. Some might argue that removing himself from the very business that had taken up much of Grimm’s life over the years instead of immersing himself in it wasn’t the best path to success. However, his accomplishments spoke for themselves. And it would continue to be that way, regardless of his opponents’ attempts to prove otherwise.
But that would have to wait. Today the PCW was the farthest thing from his mind, as he drifted deeper into the fog and lost himself among the decrepit shells of the vessels that one ruled these waters.
He paddled on.
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The empty, rusting hulks bobbed in the tide, brushing up against one another with a very annoying metallic scrape. The sound was worse than Freddy Krueger and Wolverine scraping their claws against a chalkboard at the same time. Grimm weaved his way through the ship graveyard, his kayak cutting through the oily sheen floating atop the brine. The rust and diesel was so heavy he could taste it in his mouth.
He had been taking his usual route through the marshes of Pamlico Sound when he suddenly decided to follow a clearing through the grass that he couldn’t remember ever seeing before. The channel wound its way down island, and he found the complete lack of tributaries or branches to be a little odd but not enough to make him feel that he should turn around. His paddle dipped into the water on one side then the other, his kayak cutting through the channel with ease.
But then the fog rolled in, which is shouldn’t have at this time of day, and his paddle began getting hung up on objects in the water. Something would intermittently bump the bottom of the kayak. Grimm tried to peer down through the dark waters, but all he caught was the occasional glimpse of an abandoned crab trap reflecting back at him like a dead child’s rib cage. His paddle would emerge from the water covered in slime that he knew wasn’t algae. Then the channel opened up into a wide expanse of water. It was full of looming black shapes.
He stopped paddling and drifted around the skeletonized remains of a fishing boat. Its wooden doors swung on rusted hinges, slamming open and shut with the faintest gust of wind. Faded letters spelling out Filthy Whore along the bow revealed a past owner with either a twisted sense of humor or one particularly depraved individual. Maybe both. Grimm stuck his paddle in the water in order swing around and resumed paddling once he was behind the behemoth.
A few more yards into his detour, Phinehas felt as if he needed to leave…now. Out of this forgotten boneyard and back to the familiar waters and marshlands he had traversed so many times before. Other than the grinding and slapping of water against hulls it was quiet. Uncomfortably quiet at that. Until a fog horn sounded long and funereal out there somewhere. The blast of a horn seemingly out of nowhere jogged his memory back to reality, out of the upsetting thoughts that had been plaguing him lately. If asked in the future, he would never be able to direct anyone to this site, and he himself could not find it if he wanted to, but he would swear that he witnessed figures roaming the decks of these ships. Pale, slack-jawed, covered in barnacles, seaweed embedded in their hair and eels slithering out of their wide toothless mouths and nostrils. Crabs scurrying up their water-logged limbs to pluck out eyes and nibble on flesh. He didn’t believe it at the time, but if hard pressed he would admit to it later on.
Back on the mainland, away from the salt and the sand and the never-ending expanses of water, Phinehas Grimm was a professional wrestler. He was a champion, meaning he got to tote a heavy gold belt around from week to week, and he was only a couple days away from his next match. He was scheduled to face one of the supposed big shots of the federation, one whose name he couldn’t recall at the moment, but big enough for Grimm to imagine this might be the most anticipated meeting of the night. He assumed this big-man-on-campus would have already said a few choice words about yours truly, perhaps made a prediction or two about how severely poor Grimm would be beaten, and then continued on with whatever it was those sort of people ranted about. This was all speculation, of course, for Grimm tried to watch as little television as possible and he refused to read anything resembling wrestling press. Call it a quirk if you will. Some might argue that removing himself from the very business that had taken up much of Grimm’s life over the years instead of immersing himself in it wasn’t the best path to success. However, his accomplishments spoke for themselves. And it would continue to be that way, regardless of his opponents’ attempts to prove otherwise.
But that would have to wait. Today the PCW was the farthest thing from his mind, as he drifted deeper into the fog and lost himself among the decrepit shells of the vessels that one ruled these waters.
He paddled on.
