Now, I am thinking of a film; not just any film, you should take an educated guess…
Pirates of the Caribbean
Now, after watching this film I got to wondering, what would be a good piratey hideout?
Ah, the elusive hideout for myself and pirate lads, I suppose I can tell you a bit about it.
However, I cannot tell ye where my hideout be located, as then it would no longer be a legitimate hideout ye see? But let us just say that in the Caribbean there is a remote and tiny island that is yet undiscovered by heathen man.
On our pirate’s island there is a hidden entrance (hidden by only the most beautiful flora and fauna might I add). This entrance leads down into a cave lit only by oil lanterns and on the chiseled out stairway there are a few gold coins and gems that have fallen from the vast treasure chests that I and my mateys carried down to the depths to hide away from the casual observer and the scoundrel thieves. (t’is one thing entirely to steal from heathen man, another to steal from fellow pirates, yet there are still those blasted souls who think that pirating means pirating everyone and everything, even fellows in the same occupation as themselves).
Also, found in the depths of our cave, there are vast wooden barrels filled with only the finest wines and ales that mankind has made and my crew and I drink until we can drink no more and divvy out the treasures to be pawned on the larger islands and on the continent called America so that we can have cold hard cash to take home to the wifeys. Ah yes, t’is a pirate’s life for me.
Arrgh!
A FEW DAYS LATER SOMEONE CAME INQUIRING AS TO WHETHER I’D SEEN THE LOCAL TOWN CRAZY.
We heard a knock on the door, and then, a robot appears, seemingly motionless.
“A friend of yours?” I ask each of my friends in turn. The robot advances toward me as everyone replies, ”no.”
It is then that I realize, “Isn’t this my sister?”
Her metallic head nods as I ask, “Is that you, Nancy?”
She holds a machete in her clawed hand attached to her one metal arm. As she stops in front of me I see the flexing machinations of steel parts, the color of a Philadelphia sky. Her shiny plates seemingly reflect my terror as I know her strength. I am afraid that she is once again trying to get back at me for locking her in the tractor supply shed when we were kids. She still hasn’t forgiven me for that childish act on our farm. We didn’t have toys.
Nancy continues forward, clanking into my kitchen and I ask, “Want something to eat? I made a giant beef stew in my new pressure cooker. Most edges are scraggly (I should have thought to use my knife sharpener) but it’s really tasty.”
Nancy doesn’t respond as she reaches for goat milk lotion ready to apply, first to her face, although, no lotion is being absorbed. More goes on the neck, then shoulders and chest and breasts. She lotions her arm and then her hand.
Nancy attempts to say something and I hear, “screech eek.” she again reaches for the lotion, the metal tears streaming down her rivets. She smears about a half bottle of it on her steely legs.
“Oh god, help me. I’m not absorbing the lotion with the benefits it provides. No longer will I be smooth, clear and most of all supple.”
“My end will come to be, and I will be found in a dump surrounded by deteriorating farm equipment, old kitchen utensils, toys, trucks, cars, and other items of uselessness. There will be no ashes. Some centuries into the future I will be dust and I wonder if anyone will still be dusting then.
I ask, “Will humans need for cleanliness exist as it does today? Possibly no dirt will exist as, having no use for it, we may discard it into a black hole. Dirt, the has-been. No more dusting and cleaning floors…….” yes! That certainly is the function of black holes! Garbage dumps into which we can put anything and everything and those things we will never see again nor would it ever effect our environment, our earth, our water or humans, animals, surely any and all life forms.
We think she has gone mad but she is making a peculiar kind of sense. Not the kind to which we are accustomed, yet undeniably with logical inference.
With no dirt, would we want to shower and bathe as frequently as we now do? Wash utensils and dinnerware? Indeed, even wash vegetables… potatoes before peeling? Carrots, turnips, radishes? With no dirt would we wash onions before dicing? Would we need any water at all other than for boiling? Suppose we only roasted, broiled, baked and fried? Possibly we would use water only for a modicum of personal cleanliness and chores.”
She proffers options. “Possibly a ball joint would be useful, or levers or my independently controlled digits. Wiring might be salvaged.”
“My gleam! No, my gleam will not last. That precious commodity will soon be gone. Vanished. Gone with the windmill. How to relinquish my identity? Like ZsaZsa losing her leg, I will never I will never see myself as I had, again. Or my elf or shelf or Delphi, the car parts manufacturer, stealth, or wealth. no one knowing Zsa-Zsa, be it friends, husband, children, fans, the IRS, the FBI in their plain white van, hucksters, gamblers, gigolos, gypsies, her doctors, nurses, pharmacist, masseuse, her lovers, her lovers and her lovers could not look at her mutilated body as they used to when she was intact. Her handymen, Russians, favorers, nitwits, hustlers, astronauts, philosophers, midgets, widgets, fidgeters, pigeons, rigid frigates, her installers of all mechanical purchases from red hill general store. ZsaZsa’s beautician will never look at one-legged Zsa Zsa the way she looked at Zsa-Zsa with two legs. Her hair colorer, makeup artist, neck stretcher, not gardener, nor cook, nor cleaning personnel, the police, dish TV, her baker, clothes consultant, (“what the hell do you think I’m going to wear”) her personal assistant, secretary, bodyguard (there’s a laugh for ya), interpreter. Her prince and she shall be divorced. Finally she will be free to love Raymond Burr in a necrophilia way. Raymond Burr, the perpetual winner, intellectual strongman, law orderer, shrewd director of aides: “Eve, take this down. Ed go to Warung and see if Mr. Soot is plowing. Mark, check similar litigation.” yeah. You knew he could get out of that wheelchair, have a waffle and blister anyone around him. They had better have a first aid kit or a ticket to a hospital. That block of a head attached to that block of a body was invincible.
Nancy continued to lament about her newly acquired shortcomings: frozen joints, shifting memory, wobbly handwriting, lack of oil, decreased stamina, shorted appetite, bad nights in bed, alone.
She said to me, “What can I do about this?”
I replied, “I don’t know. Maybe gardening?”
Image from http://computinginformationandthefuture.blogspot.com/
This is a good example of the saying, “I may be in prison but my kids’ toys aren’t damaged.”
