Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Diary of a shipwrecked sailor



Early March 2011 –
Hibernating for four months is the only way we can save enough energy to face the perils ahead in this Godforsaken place but oh it was good to wake and feel the sun on our faces and think, if only for a minute, that we were back in our homeland of the Premier Division.
This will be the fifth summer that we have spent in this barren wilderness, searching for a ship to bring us home. It seems that we have circumnavigated this island several times to no avail and at times the despair has been great but we trust in God and the circularity of football fortunes that one day we will see our loved ones again.
A carrier pigeon brought us news that things are again not well back home. It appears that the good ship Torpedo Fingal was wrecked on the rocky coast of fiscal rectitude and was lost with all hands on board. There are few here that mourn her passing, having seriously questioned the raw materials used in her construction.
There are rumours too that the SS Bohs nearly went under in the same storm but survived by throwing overboard everything that wasn’t nailed down. I fear for her greatly, though not enough to lose much sleep over.
The SS Drogs also was sighted off our coast and the wind seemed certain to blow her ashore at the precise spot where our own vessel capsized. However, the Hand of God intervened and the wind changed at the last moment and the last we saw of her she was heading back to the Premier Division with the wind in her sails.
Last week we travelled to the interior of this place to a town called Long-ford in search of provisions for the voyage ahead. Oh but this is a Godforsaken place where the rain pours out of the sky like water from a bilge pump. However on this occasion, it stayed dry and many of the crew took that as an omen of bright days ahead.
Fortunately the tribe in Long-ford were very accommodating and gave us the most amount of booty that we could carry. They can often be a recalcitrant, niggardly bunch so we were pleased to find them in such generous mood.
Last week, a small party went hunting in a place called Cretty-ard. God knows but it is a Godforsaken place but they were hopeful of bagging some serious game which would serve to buoy us up for the months ahead. As I write this, I have heard no news of their return. If they return empty handed it will be a bitter blow
Tonight we receive a deputation from a tribe that dwell on the banks of the mysterious River Slaney in the south east of the island. It is by all accounts a Godforsaken place.
Their leader is a great, wild-haired warrior with a penchant for pink. He has recently being accepted into the island’s inner sanctum after wrestling an ox, a badger and a sabre-toothed squirrel so he is obviously a powerful man. Let us hope they come bearing gifts and without a spirit of animosity.

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