The Golden Voyage of Barney Rubble, part 13

I looked up an observed the two other ships from Barney’s flotilla gliding up across the World Ocean toward us. Both were manned with unregenerate morons and on both decks were very tall men, both “watching things” as their boats progressed. With a great deal of alarm, I noted that each of the ships was captained by a straight-jacketed wild man, tied to the mast and barking out orders as they sailed forward. My history with wild men was not favorable, so I felt somewhat heartened that they were restrained.

The ships looked no worse the wear, sails a-tatter, but laden with goods.

Planks were produced and morons streamed back and forth between the three ships, grab-assing and laughing rhythmically. I had no idea what the fug was gonna happen, so I located Rubble and asked him what’s going on.

“The boats’re back!” he said with a laugh. He continued laughing good-naturedly as chaos unfurled its beastly flag before us.

“Are they going to accompany us?” I asked.

“Yes, but this isn’t a piano,” he replied. “But wait,” he continued. “The motivations of the supposed beast are not the reckoning of the man reckoning such things. What should we know of the heart of the less fortunate, the lesser-brained among us? Aye, that a wild man would seem less capable of merry thought than we is assumed, but the thoughts of the wild man are still his alone. He may share some of his inner logic and leaning, but how do judge from his words the contents of his mind or soul? No, we don’t and can’t know that. The wild man seems to us to be a wind-up beast who is hellbent upon destroying all civilization occurring in his path. This is all we know. However, it does seems that the wild man and the moron are allied. You see they collaborating here: how we can’t know. So, the wild man must have content of character beyond raw destruction. But he needs assistance and restraint. Thus, we bind him and tie him to the mast. Yes, he is filthy, but he has been useful in whatever it is we have been doing.

“Likewise, the moron, provided with a course through which to pass and given the structure of continual beating, proves a worthy swab. He sails the ship, hammers shit into golden helmets and slays mighty beasts. Now, before we would have said morons are entirely worthless: can’t do nothing. Not true. You have seen how they sailed the ship as expertly as any sailor upon the World Ocean. While it is true they revert to complete stupidity if left to their own devices for longer than a minute, that they stink hugely and that they have hideous practices, it is also true that there handicraft is crude but effective: they can be beat into doing what is necessary. You have seen what a boatload of morons is capable of doing. If we give them the opportunity to act as now they are doing ‘in their natural state’, it keeps them mollified and ready for doing our bidding. Yes, its true that they are doing unspeakable things now, but they will tire and we will put them back to work. Certainly, I wish they wouldn’t do what they are doing: its thoroughly disgusting, but I think its necessary for them. This is what they would do all of the time if not beaten properly.

“So these two types of beast, the wild man and the moron, while perfectly useless and destructive when left to their own designs, are useful to us when we tie them up and beat them. They perform useful tasks…and, there’s always more where they came from.”

Rubble stopped to survey the beastly on-board behavior. He lackadaisically smashed a moron on the head with his club. My god who whistles in the treetops! Were they ever disgusting!

Rubble wandered off, still gesticulating and speechifying, presumably to himself.

I gazed down at into the clear, aquamarine blue World Ocean to collect my thoughts. I had positioned myself out of the way of the subhuman activities of the morons and, resting my head on the rail, stared into the water.

Strangely enough, I could see deep into the bay water to its bottom, far below the ships. Gradually my eyes and mind adjusted to the wavering water to make out things at the bottom. What I saw raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I saw the gigantic humanoid sea monsters, like the one the morons had beheaded, walking in profusion on the sea floor. They appeared small, due to the depth of the water, but I could tell they were gargantuan. They were walking in complex patterns, in a kind of grid and going back and forth, like an enormous hive of beastly, humanoid insects. It seemed strange that there were so many of them: 1,000 times 1,000 more than likely, and yet we had only seen one upon the surface! Man, were they ever ugly!

I tried to work out what it was they were doing, but it didn’t seem to make any sense, other than that they were swarming, sort of like. I watched on for a good long time while on deck the moronic grab-assery and slobbering beastly behavior began to wear itself down. When I closed my eyes I could still see the Sea Monsters grid walking back and forth beneath the blue water. The ship bobbed up and down and the waves lapped against the hull, the morons laughed low and rhythmic and Rubble blathered on.

All of a sudden, one of the Sea Monsters looked upward and apparently saw me staring back at it. It pointed at me and yelled something composed of big bubbles. The Sea Monster Shuffle ended and they all looked upward, yelling profuse bubbles. The bubbles broke on the water around us in waves of vile fish smell. The Sea Monsters were clearly agitated, swinging their arms back and forth and shouting huges expanses of bubbles. I knew this probably wasn’t a good omen. Slowly they calmed down as the sun began to subside and they conferred together in groups. They began exhuming large rectangular boulders from the sea bottom and carrying them to the point nearest the ship. Seemed like they were building a pyramid or something. Whatever. I could tell by their progress that the building would indeed be a slow process. It would be days before the pyramid was anywhere near enough to access the ship, even with giants standing on it. I made some rude gestures at them and went to find a sleeping spot for the night.