Some Brief Advice For The Curious Reader. This story is what the Author would term a ‘Modernist’ piece of literature. It will be a complex read. It is a work that aims to maintain a self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing, and is in the same literary spirit as ‘Finnegans Wake.’ It may be a daunting, even slightly confusing, piece of literature for the general reader to tuck into. Hence, the Author has taken the liberty to provide some brief advice on how to go about reading this particular work. It’s structured like a dream. In fact, certain sections flow like dreams. Incorporating a technique called ‘magical realism’, the tale contains many fantasy elements in a realistic setting. Many sections of the piece can be interpreted literally, or allegorically. How much of the story is allegorical or literal? That is for the reader to decide. The story is set in an unspecified time, roughly in the early 1800’s when whale-hunting is at its peak. The language of the story is a varied mix of rich Jacobean English (known for its use of ‘thee’, ‘thou’, and so forth), rustic Quaker English (which is essentially Jacobean English without the ‘th’s at the end of certain present-tense verbs), and the standard contemporary English of our time. 1 The story makes use of heavy symbology, including symbology of numbers and names. Characters can embody concepts, be extensions of ideas, or just be plain fodder for the narrative. Which characters fill which roles is determined by the reader. The story is mostly satirical, and generally makes light of commonly-accepted tropes for the purposes of comedic relief, delivering a social message, or paying homage through light- hearted derision. It incorporates philosophy, poetry, song, and mythology in varied doses. Lists of names, neologisms, and coded numbers will appear often. Foreign languages (such as Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit) appear at certain points in the story. Every name, number, and punctuation- mark has an intended meaning behind it, even if the meaning does not seem as obvious on the first reading of the text. Like an onion, this story will have many layers. It is a tale inspired by Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’, James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’, and Gabriel García Márquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude.’ This story is dedicated to these three luminaries, and the shining legacies they left behind. 2 Episode One: Preamble. In time passed, yea, not long ago, there lived pigs, in stature little, in number three, who, being of an age both entitled and inspired to seek their fortune, did set about to do thusly. When they had travelled a certain distance, pig numbered first spake, saying, ‘Hearken, brethren! Heed this tempestuous realm! Tarry we long from hearth and home we shall fare, I fear, not well!’ And so being collectively agreed, but individually impelled, the diminutive swine set about each to erect for himself an abode. Pig numbered first did construct his house from straw, pig numbered second did likewise, though rather not from straw, instead from sticks. Meanwhile, unique in his imagining, pig numbered three did erect as his domicile, stalwart and garish, a structure made from brick entirely. Ah, but soon there happened along, as tis frequently the scenario in classic tale of protagonist-pig or red-hooded child, a wolf. Carnivorous nature in full season, he called out to the straw-ensconced swine, saying, 3 ‘Pray thee, little pig, grant me entrance!’ But pig one recalled with sage foreboding, that he is mad who trusts in the tameness of a belly-pinched wolf, and responded immediately, ‘Nay it shall not be! Indeed, not by a whit or a whiskered jowl!’ To this most-expected response the wolf replied immediately, ‘Then steal thyself, little pig. Forthwith shall I endeavour, in blowing means both huffing and puffing, to dismantle yon flippin flaxen fortress.’ Whereupon there issued forth from the wolf an exhale of gale proportions that quickly rendered straw hovel to dregs and dross, and carried aloft piglet, and shattered quarters both. Exposed now to claw and fang, piglet one made haste, wolf in pursuit, to the stick-festooned sanctum of peccary secondary, causing pig two to cry out in dismay, 4 ‘Well, this knots my knickers! The marshalling of feral wolf to my doorstep is nowhere among those endeavours amenable nor congenial!’ ‘A thousand pardons,’ begged one, ‘It would seem the beast’s painful breath hath purged me both of home and sound judgment alike.’ The malevolent blasts of the wolf’s exhale splattered second swine’s shackered shortened sanctimonious scolding simultaneously. ‘Lo and behold’, squealed two, ‘Stand we now amid wooden wreckage, tremulous and vulnerable with nary a strategy for eschewing the canine devourer looming in deadly proximity!’ ‘Strategy’, exclaimed one, ‘While tis noble the contemplation of tactical particularities, pressed as we are with time-restraints forbidding detailed strategical conversation, I would urge we...run!’ Whether by their own fleet-footed competence, or the wolf’s winless attitude, the bantam porkers arrived at their ultimate kindred neighbour’s inexpugnable brick ingress, unscathed. 5 Upon the third pig’s door with urgent hooves they pounded, calling out, ‘Unbar this entrance and with haste, we beseech thee!’ The third pig hailed from the American colonies. Possessing a vocabulary substantially less robust than his impromptu visitors, replied, ‘Say what?’ ‘Seek we sanctuary!’, they implored on the verge of hysteria, ‘Lest we fall forthwith to the ravenous appetency of yonder approaching carnivore!’ Still confounded by their importunate words, pig three did render ajar his portal, whereupon one and two spilled through and collapsed beyond his threshold, innervated. ‘So y’all just wanted to come in? Why didn’t you just say that?’ 6 The hiss of the wolf could be heard, ‘Pray thee, pigs, grant me entrance...!!!’ ‘The wolf!’, said one and two. ‘Wolf?’, said three, ‘What d’you s’pose he wants?’ ‘He seeks to gain purchase within, indeed he would occupy, this very alcove, were he but afforded the most meagre of opportunity!’ ‘Right...reckon I’ll just ask him what he wants...’ ‘Under no circumstances!’ squealed two, flinging self against portal. ‘There is not to be gained a costing external opponent, save our own immediate demise!’ 7 ‘What’d you say about my mama?’ House and occupants were again engulfed in a malevolent blast of wolfish wind. The foundations shook, the frame rattled, and, lo, to the astonished eyes of piglets and encroaching scoundrel alike, stood the third pig’s lodging, undaunted. Aghast and befuddled, two queried of three, ‘How does, against such relentless and torrential onslaught, this domicile endure?’ Pig three, puffed out chest, tapped a hoof to the hearth and responded, ‘It’s American-made.’ 8 Episode Two: Call me Ishmael. ‘I thee beseech, O goddess mild, the hateful hate to plain, Whereby Achilles was so wrong, and grew in such disdain, That thousands of the Grecian dukes, in hard and heavy plight, To Pluto’s court did yield their souls, and gaping lay upright, Those senseless trunks of burial void, by them erst gaily born, By ravening curs, and vulturine fowls, in pieces to be torn, The lonely songs of the sea, and that great white whale forlorn.’ The salty tang of the weepingwillowy wisps of wind wound round his waist and wasted watery eyes as he walked with wobbling waddles to the wallowing wanderer waiting for him. ‘Shalom aleichem.’ ‘Aleichem shalom.’ They shook hands. ‘Ironside. Jedidiah Melchisedec Ironside. I would have said my first name first, but I decided to provide my surname first as it is a cliché most people assume in meeting for the first time.’ 9 ‘Tis quite quaint, I assure thee.’ ‘Ta. Thou art far too kind. I would marry thee, if the laws on sodomiticum were revised by parliament. And who art thou?’ The stranger responded in the following fashion: ‘By day I am the radiant Sun, by night I am the speckled Moon, By dawn I am the rays of Ushas, by the twelfth hour I am Noon. In spring I am the warm welcome wind, in summer the greenery the land yields, In autumn the crisp brown leaves, in winter the snow amidst the barren fields. In war I am the bloodlust brewing, in peace I am the silent sounds, In sacrilege the broken statues, in sacredness the hallowed grounds. In earth I am the adamant metal, in fire I am the light of flame, In air I am the wind of battle, in water I am the salty spray. Amongst cliffs I am the eagle valiant, at night the schrichowle softly screaming, Amongst woodland burrows the clever crow, on lakes the divine swan gleaming. In deserts the jackal laughing madly, in forests the blackbear growling, In jungles the tyger prowling sadly, in caves the moon-drunk wolf a-howling. Amongst the plains the lion steady, near muddy pools oxlike Behemoth sleeping, In lakes the hungry Leviathan ready, amongst trees the willow weeping. 10 With stars I am Arcturus mighty, and Pleiades amongst the sisters, The Mazzaroth with chambers nightly, Orion amongst the cosmic whispers. Beelzebub the Lord of the Flies, Ashmedai the king of lusts unfulfilled, Belphegor amongst the greedy gluttons, Mammon amongst the rich and skilled. The lightning in the skies at storm, the thunder in the quaking sheath, Abaddon the swift destroyer Above, and Apollyon in the pit Beneath. The Orient amongst the eastern grounds, and Occident amongst the western breeze, The Euroclydon amongst tumultuous storms, and the gentle gales when the cyclones cease. The tears within the sorrowed eyes, the cries amongst the angered souls, The voice of revolt in times of tyranny, and ambition in the pursuit of goals.