"Yar, ye be asking about my face scar. I'll tell ye everything, for a dram of grog and a smile like sunshine from yer pritty face to make me forget about me own grisly viz."



"Argh! Yer complexion is like the smooth backside of a right whale! Argh! And thar be much pretty teeth in yer blowhole!"



"Long ago, I was a fiction reader, I tells ye. I war were working a slush pile in New York City, whar the queers and trollops dance together like fancy devils, and whar every sinner has his pleasure for a time."



"I war working a fiction slush pile for days and days, never sleeping, never resting, culling out the bad stories from the slush, and sending out mild letters of faint praise and encouragement to the few stories endowed with what we sailors call "a promising voice that needs fine-tuning and development."

"I war not any finding good stories, stories good enough to be traded on the docks of Baltimore and Houston for salt pork and antibiotics."



"Instead, I war reading bad submission after bad submission, until my head began to ache and my heart began to grow as restless as a junky sea otter. Who were these pissant, no-account swabs sending me their leaky tales? I raised my fist and punched me own chest, crying at the night for sweet deliverance."

"Slowly, I grew more and more despondent, and resolved to cast meself into the great, stormy sea, whar I would be troubled NO MORE by unskilled fiction!"



"However, at the last moment, I made up my mind to read one last tale, and cast the die on the strength of its merits."

"I began to read this tale and my eyes began to burn and sweat. This last tale was a fine tale! A great tale of love and obsession! The dialog was top notch and the characters...yar...were strange and specific! Their activities were surprising, and YAR, LO DID I DECIDE THIS STORY WAS THE FINEST STORY I HAD READ IN MANY A TIDE!"



"It was called "The Difference Between My Girlfriend and a Sea Captain," by some deckhand named Katie Coyle, probably of no good account nor of no good breeding. Yet her pen was as fine and steady as a sailor's gait when he strides into a whorehouse, and as carefree and loose as a sailor's gait when he strides out again."

"Argh! Read this story right now or I'll stab ye in the eye!"



"Oh, right. You wanted to know about me face scar. Actually, it's no scar at all. 'Tis a birth defect."



"I use it as a marketing technique. It draws people in and then POW! I hit them with an unrelated story or a product placement. Sorry, ye've been confidenced! Thank ye for the grog and the smile!"

Posted by miracle on Sat, 18 Dec 2010 13:26:05 -0600 -- permanent link