The Figurehead

I have walked slowly away from the jeers and ridicule of others. They follow behind me, throwing trash and their feces kept in sacks, screaming obscenities at me. They have tied cans around my testicles which scrape against the pavement as I walk. It would be foolish to expect anything from everyone otherwise. I’ve seen the films. I’ve heard the stories.

I’m heading to the ocean and a few of them are dropping off. Walking patiently to the sea where I’ll feel real. In the beginning God created a blue ocean of water below and a blue ocean of air above. Everything blue.

The rabble has slowly dissipated to a couple of drooling idiots who follow behind like babbling cretins, mumbling and cursing me, some not even knowing my name. Just kidding. None of them really know me. None of them even know my name.

Hypnotically walking to the harbor, the small port. There’s a boat I remember and I climb the bow like a spider. The drooling idiots urinate all over each other and collapse into a purple seizure, swallowing their tongues.

I lie on top of the bow, mounting it like an erotic clutch. I feel my limbs harden then petrify and I am now a figurehead. I have grown wings and fins both. My hair dangles like seaweed and cold sea green water courses through my veins. I no longer belong to heaven or hell because I belong to Poseidon. His misfit child.

The boat embarks from the harbor and I can smell the salt air, the cold waves lapping against my long, slender legs. The wind is fresh and rippling around me. Sea gulls circle around screaming like hysterical old wives. Sailors run around setting sails and lifting anchors. Tattoos of feet running around the deck, keeping busy.

Quietly in the distance I can hear mens voices behind me talking about women they've loved. Women they've left behind. Laughing. Lying. Laughing.

For awhile the ship rocks in a flicker ring of light and color, one minute sunny and clear, the next all cloudy and harder waves rocking the ship. I look down and see a jungle of marine life passing around me. The whales. Sea lions. The dolphins. Octopus. The sharks.

If I died like…people, they would have to burn me and sprinkle my ashes all over the sea. The very first thing God created. Land was an afterthought. People were just an afterthought.

My body points the way ahead into the deep blue sea. The waves reach out and caress my legs as King Neptune greets me. The clouds quietly part to let the sun come in and greet me again. When it gets dark the moon and the stars will show us the way. Next stop Athens.