Jumping Ship Was the Easier Part

Homer Van Pelt came to town one day in late March, pants cinched round his waist with whaler’s yarn, eyes burnt through with misery and awfulness. Saying so long to his scow-mates he jumped ship, diving headfirst into the torrid waters below. 'You expect too much of me, too little too much' said Homer Van Pelt to no one in particular. ‘Jumping ship was the easier part, it’s the getting past too little too much that’s the real trick, the trick of the cards’. The sky beckoned and then fell silent, not a cloud or a moorhen in sight. ‘This man in the hat you speak of, is he real, I mean is he too little too much too late too soon?’ A ship jumped land and sailed into the blue stillness. ‘I have sailed the 27½ seas and not once have I seen a man in a hat, too little too much, too soon or too late’. The next day in the Shag and Lately a story appeared about a man in a hat who’d jumped ship, jumped and leaped and hoisted overboard, leaving a blue stillness in his miserable awful wake.

Late March days are merciless, bluestone blue skies and hound’s-teeth, its all in the cards, never too soon too late, never too much or too little. A pale ashen testicular sky, not a scrotal-cloud in sight; viva la France la·bret (an ornament made of bone, shell, steel, or other material that is worn pierced through the lower lip or in the skin just below the lower lip. They are worn by some peoples in East Africa and South America and by people elsewhere who engage in body piercing)! Wait for me in the pale ashen testicular sky, Vernon Spanaway, Firth of Fritch et al and so on ad hoc. This does not come easy, as easy as you might think. I put much effort and grease into this, this aberrance and lye. It might stead you well were you to jump ship while you have the chance, as chances come never too soon, nor too late.