Ahoy! Friday, December Twenty-Six, the Year of Our Lord Eighteen
Hundred and Seventy-Three (1657 HOURS PST: LOW TIDE)

`Tis a blustry winter d a y at the shipyard. Aye. Snow-
covered tugs. Reminds me of long, l o n g ago. Me `n yer
granpappy a-whalin' way, way up North, so cold yer beard i s a
frozen block o' snot. Alternate four `n six-hour shifts on deck,
arrr, me on the jib and yer granpappy like a n ice s t a t u e at
the wheel. I called out to him ev'ry so often to make sure his blood
was still pumpin'. We w u z a ragged bunch, lost in the snow `n
raw f r o m the merciless arctic wind, hands a-bleedin' thru o u
r gloves from wrestlin' the sails t o and fro. Yer granpappy
ne'er complained, always stood his watch, e'en when we wuz marooned
in giant floes in Scandinavian waters. There we wuz, at a
standstill f o r s i x t e e n days `n nights, our whaler
surrounded and imprisoned i n ice, food rations down t o salted
pork and jarred peach halves and whalemeat, and o u t of boredom
me `n yer granpappy lowered ourselves overboard o n t h e anchor
chain a n d stepped onto the floes. We walked out quite far,
headin' f o r a g i a n t glacier that had caves `n buttresses
formed by melting and refreezing…and then we saw it. Him. No,
it. The creature. Ill-dressed for the extreme weather, the
hulking monster nonetheless seem'd merely annoyed or offended by
the cold, and i t showed no signs o f rigidity or mortal peril.
It had hands, arms, legs, head and shoulders like a large man but its
pallor was gray and inhuman, and h e looked like a thing clumsily
welded together from parts of several men, ill-fitting mismatched
parts bonded with twine and glue. Aye, but it wuz an agile `n swift
thing, movin' effortlessly a c r o s s the ice w i t h powerful
leaps `n strides, fearless of the shifting terrain.

W e nearly dropped frozen nuggets in our trousers when the thing
turned a n d caste its dark gaze upon us. It was more than a h u
n d r e d yards away yet I could feel i t s
anguish, immeasurable loneliness and pain, and I had no doubt
that, if it wished, it could be upon us long before w e could scurry
back to the safety of the ship. Yer grandaddy crossed `imself in a
n automatic reflex `n muttered a short prayer, we backed up `til the
landscape h i d u s from the creature's field of vision, then we
ran like hell's bells. T h e wooden deck was comforting underfoot
when we returned, but me `n yer grandaddy hurried to the armory and
loaded muskets which we kept with us `til the ship broke free. W e t
r i e d to tell the tale to our shipmates. They quickly
dismissed my account a s a lie or an illusion, a product of sensory
deprivation `n snowblindness. T h e y heeded yer grandaddy's
word with m o r e respect, but in the end the c r e w was too e
x h a u s t e d to consider more than our immediate peril in the
harsh elements.

Aye, but no one c o u l d deny the wailing cry of untold angst
that rang out on the seventeenth morning as the ship came to life `n
squeezed thru narrow gaps in the frozen sea. They heard it f r o m
bow to stern, on deck `n below, above the howlin' winds `n the
cracklin' ice `n the moanin' wood of our strainin' vessel. `Twas a
cry straight f r o m Hell itself, l o n g a n d torturous,
resoundin' with abandonment `n d e s o l a t i o n. Aye, e'en the
grizzliest of hardened sailors aboard paused, as if to manually
restart their own hearts, then we hurried about the business of
distancing ourselves from that colourless, soulless place.


Arrr,

`appy new year, matey