Basking Under Southern Light

‘Three men standing near a carcass of a basking shark.’ Taken by Alexander Lorimer Kennedy, Fowlers Bay, South Australia. 1914. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia: https://nla.gov.au:443/tarkine/nla.obj-237515598

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THREE MEN STOOD NEAR A CARCASS OF A BASKING SHARK.

"What went from water into land?" asked one of the men, rhetorically, sucking on his pipe. "God will answer that."

The cove had stunk of seaweed most the day, seaweed which, this close to shore, covered most the sand. It was a stormless, waveless afternoon.

"Such leviathans know not what they seek, or who's to say?" asked Cob, again rhetorically. "Even fairest Captains capsize on a stormtossed sea, or sever ships, intimately known, by the outcropped rock, concealed itself as light."

"He's gone mad with rage," said Harrison.

"Rage?" Cob replied. "Rage, no, I am befuddled, yes, but look here at the, limp, sock-fall of a beast."

"I've preference for the limpid sea," said the third man, not facing them.

Cob continued: "What draught is shallower than that of that which swims itself? Best not to speak of it, you would say, queer questions carry only the inconsequential... HA! No fish abates its home in solemn isolation, and, no footed-beast can wander past the floe, so listen in—"

"Truly mad!" laughed Harrison.

"I think he thinks himself a poet."

"Do you think the seaweed frustrated her?" asked Cob, now, unlike before, festering the spleen. "Disposed her mechanisms of perception and receipt? Or the sky, perhaps! Distracting her on such a cloudless day in all its beauty that she drifted onto shore?" He approached Harrison and slapped him on the chest. "Or was it hungry-lust that brought her here, a disillusionment of too much food, which was, as Heaven's secret, a natural trap, but realised all to late."

"Count the men who care."

"Quiet!" yelled Cob. "QUIET, you, you... beast! I'd sooner count the Gods. What wild works at play before you, the works of war and, and yet... y-yeh-yet..."

"What are you getting at?" asked Harrison. "You smell the corpse yes? You see the same shark as me and my good friend here? Yes?"

"Yes," Cob replied.

"So tell me tell me. What is your point?"

"Is her brain a fo'c'sle?"

"Is what."

"Is her brain a fo'c'sle? That's all I ask."

"Okay," said Harrison, turning to his companion, "he has gone mad."

"That is all I ask!" Cob was red in the face, hot as anything, sweating through his hat, swinging arms like the tendrils of a jellyfish. "That is all I ask. That our living quarters be accounted for—and hers! Such that life, beyond man, could feign to carry on! Inconsequential, you sicken me—you sicken the world, such hasteless, dis-dain, for thought. You, you..." Cob had stopped to think a while; the third man no longer peered upon horizons; the distance between all three men shortened, and shortened again, until their juncture formed a small, neat triangle. "You bring the riot of the world."

"Who's that in the distance?" said the third of the men.

Alexander walked a long while down the hillside, stopping twice, blocking the sun with his hand both times, emulating in these moments, only in his silhouette, the vague shape of some self-assuming prey. He wore a beanie, despite the heat, and, undeterred by distance, was obviously sucking time and time again upon his pipe.

"My word," said the stranger, approaching them.

"What's that?" yelled Harrison.

"My word," Alexander repeated. "He's quite the canvas."

"Yes, quite the win," Harrison replied.

"What'll he take?" asked Alexander.

"We were speculating, my friend and I. Nine and three-quarters was my best guess, we're betting on it, as it happens, my friend and I."

"I see."

"Yess'n, just waiting for the company crane, then up and off to port."

Close enough to assess all three men, Alexender made his next address to Cob: "Hello sir, how are you?"

"Don't you spark the ole rustic," said Harrison, laughing unceremoniously.

"Mind your lip!"

"He's..." Harrison sought an appropriate word. It did not come.

"I'm well," Cob went on, now addressing the photographer. "I'm well."

Thank you for reading. This story was submitted to Vocal's Deep Dive Challenge. If it was worth your time, tips of any size contribute to my living, and are greatly appreciated.

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with love

- T VV