I trust the sheets to serve me right, she whined to the wheel as she whirled into the dying
light. The sound of noise not only annoys an oyster, it stills the soul and recapitulates
the sad ghost of master roisterdoister.
Yes, he himself, tutting in the wings as the great bird slowly rose from the cliffs and serenaded
into the rising sun, spilling the seaweed over the keyboard until the words sank below
the pixellated waves.
Indeed in deed, in dead men's eyes, came the advancing crown of thorns at full fathom five,
just missing the dredge as it edged painfully across the mouth of the trench. It was a
dark and stormy bight on which the brave ship sailed, the coloratura nailed to the mast
singing to greet the dawn.
On and on she went, deafening the bull seals as they fell off the papal palimpsests in droves,
barking and slooping in a frenzy.
Too much too much, we cried, as the nets fell heavily over us and raised us into the air like so
many Holdens destined for the hold. Who knows which hesitation marks will hit the
headboard now?
It is on this count we seek to know the final number, shipreckoned to within a fault,
decimalised up to a point. And why bother, indeed, I asked, heading for the last
roundoff. By this nought we shall know them.
Epigwaitt is on Auckland Island. Survivors of the wreck of the Grafton (1864) camped there for about a year and a half.
