RUMOURS OF ALBINO SHARKS – SUPERSTITION IN THE DARK CONTINENT

CHAPTER ONE

 

                     Sighting of Blind Jimmy?

RUMOURS OF ALBINO SHARKS – SUPERSTITION IN THE DARK CONTINENT

“I have immortal longings in me.”

“I will praise any man who will praise me.”                                    William Shakespeare

The doctor who lives next door was shouting over into my yard, when he saw me standing naked with coffee cup in hand, gazing off towards the vistas in the East.

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He was shouting and he’s usually a quiet man, so this was significant.  He called: “WHO WAS THAT MANIAC DRIVING YOUR CAR OUT LAST NIGHT AT 3A.M? HE GOT SOME FOOL TO PLAY THE BAGPIPES ACROSS THE BAY!”

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“THEN HE LIFTED A HUGE STONE OUT OF THE BACK OF YOUR CAR WITH ONE HAND!  HE KICKED OPEN YOUR DOOR AND THREW THE BOULDER IN! IT LOOKED
LIKE A HUGE INDIAN HEAD WITH FEATHERS!”

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Then in a stage whisper  he says, “I was going to call – but some things shouldn’t be spoken of… So I’m maintaining silence, as we agreed.” Then he said something disturbing, he said, “He looked like some dark Caliban.”
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             People can get up to some pretty strange things up here in the dark, when there’s nothing to do except look at the ducks for entertainment.

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The bad weather around here often comes suddenly from the east. Quickly lightning begins to strike along the shore, and if you’re in a tin boat floating perilously over this deep lagoon, you’d better get the hell out.

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Actually, so far the lake is called bottomless. The crew hired by the government shows up every four or five years and they try to find the bottom with heavy measured chains – they  have never had enough chains to find the bottom.

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I’m thinking, “In this ‘modern age’ surely there must be a way to measure depth more quickly.

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But a family runs the business and I guess they are funded by the federal government, so they keep trying in the old way. I’m thinking, what about sonar? But the chains are too much fun. They provide a Gothic flavor to the whole operation… And who wants to find the bottom anyway?

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           Sometimes sitting the local bar, 1,000 feet down a dirt road from my house, I sit quietly and listen. The people from along the peninsula keep whispering two tables over from me about, “the best place to hide a body.”

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I already know, but I’m not about to interrupt the good clean fun of my neighbours.
This is the land of 100,000 lakes and a million miles of muskeg. Bodies are lost up here even when no one is trying to hide them.

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I also hear them talk about the fresh water sharks that come and go across vast distances. After all, the caverns beneath our lake ( as everybody knows) are directly connected with caverns beneath rivers and lakes approaching the Gulf of Mexico.

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I heard Suzie, a fine looking lusty lass with muscular thighs and knees that can crack walnuts, I heard her whisper to 3 girls from the northern volleyball team, she said: “In the winter, that’s where they go to feed. Those poor Cajuns! Should we warn them?”

                                        (C) 200o-2016 by W.G. Milne