“A Simple Yule Story”,...rerun.

I wrote this just before the Yuletide. Around then my health went to hell. So I missed everything up to Valentines Day. That, and I think our dear comrade "Z" was offline so he may have missed this story.

The partial return of young "Midshipman Pip!"

I'm thinking over ideas for further adventures, but this will have to do for now. So Z as I promised, and which you might have missed "Pip" returns,...for a bit.

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(A mid-shipman Pip Christmas story for my friends, especially “Z”. I make a cameo as his “Uncle’. The first stave of Pip’s adventures is below this one. You may wish to start there.  

…also there’s been a bit of time travel in these few lines. As Pip, and his ship are from 1904, and this story takes place in 2032. …shit happens.)

The HMS Agamemnon ported at the isle of Turquoise Christmas eve. There was snow on the ground, and the winds were brisk. Passersby greeted one another heartfully. The spirit of Yule was well about.

As Dickens wrote. 
"Christmas is that one time in the rolling year when men, and woman from all circumstance open their shut up hearts to the world.”
Young Pip on liberty walked up Algernon Hill. This to his Uncle’s shop of “Bewildered Amazements”.  All prices negotiable.  Pip banged the brass knocker whose shape changed as the wind blew against it. There opened was his dear Uncle.

Pip’s old kindly generous often befuddled by the world “Uncle”.
Surprised, and bearing a broad smile Uncle said, “…Pip! Ah! …and a merry Yule to you. Come in child! ’…in in in from the cold!”
“Hi Uncle!” Piped Pip his round glasses fogging from the warmth of the shop. Uncle,…“Aw bless you child. How happy I am to see you.”
Laughter smiles, and ironic jibes followed. 

“Cider! we must have cider” happily bellowed uncle.  Pip, “…yes it was so cold coming up your hill.” Uncle’s apprentice Toby poking his head from a side door, “….Hey Pip”,…“Hey Toby!
"Cider, and buttered buns!” said uncle.
Cider indeed! We need some Toby magic. Hot Christmas cider minted as only you can! “I’m on it” said Toby disappearing into the heart of this magical yet user friendly shop.

About time travel. 
Pip often brings items from the past for uncle’s inspection. This is how he gets so many bewilderments for the shop. More in another story.

Old uncle took Pip’s tunic, and gratefully accepted various items from Pip’s century. They sat by the fireplace where they spoke of seas, and  ships cabbages, and kings madmen, and poets. 
Then came Toby with three very large drafts of Minted Christmas Cider! All three souls sat together warm, and cozy as they sipped laughed burped, and laughed again.

Happy they were. 
Happy in each other’s company. Happy with the world.  
Happy as they blessed all in it.

A Happy Yule to all.

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Here below is the first chapter in the adventures of Midshipman Pip.

“Pip @ Sea”

‘Being the Journal of Mid-Shipman Jamie Pip. 

Royal Navy Cadet.

HMS Foretina, May 12th, 1903

I stood “Bow Watch” from quarter noon till sundown. Observed, and reported a French steamer on the starboard horizon. Post noon a Spanish Ironclad “Man 'o War” crossed us heading east then turned true north.

Twin rainbows sighted 12 degrees to port. A great storm has skirted us.

…for now.

Most enchanting however at dusk a Pod of Blue Whales rode our bow break. How graceful they glided as they sang to each other.

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HMS Foretina, May 14th 1903

17 degrees N/NW of the Isle San Angelica de Isabella. 

It is a full Moon this night, and the North Star is to port. Orion with his three sisters drifts in the sky at our windward. 

The Foretina sings.

At night she sings. From her rigging’s sails boards comes music. Her timbers groan her bow a soft choir, and oh how cleanly she cleaves the sea.

The ships bell chimes as a call to prayer.

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HMS Foretina May 17th, 1903

A new lad came aboard by launch from the port of Isabella. His name is Aliabad Wellington. He is kindly in disposition, and comely in appearance.

A “Black 'a Moor” he is, and poetic in his speech.

I though a Jew shall be so forward as to befriend him. Perhaps he will smile upon me if I gift him my slim though precious volume of Sufi poems, and prayers.

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The 21st of May 1903,

9 degrees E/NE of Saint George’s Atoll.

The a fore mentioned gales have caught up with us! We suffer within her sharp teeth! The Captain has ordered we sail into the wind. Waves lash the decks The sea looms over us. Fish rain down as “Manna”.

Cook says, “…if we ain’t pulled to the bottom we’ll eat well this night!”

So fearful yet beautiful is this.

The sky a blur of color, Bright arcs of lightning dance on every horizon. The sea illuminated the masts ignited by “Saint Elmo’s Fire!”

The bow digs deep yet rises again the rigging makes her strange music. The good “Foretina” yaws hard to port then starboard then again even more deeply.

The eyes of the younger Cadets are wide with terror yet wonder too. So it was for a night, and a day.

Fading drifting sand in a gentle wind…

A dream,…how… why…..the ship the storm Aliabad faded slowly…vanished.

Even myself…gone.

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I’m reading a book. One made of linen. It’s pages it’s leaves flutter in the breeze. It speaks to me this linen book. Telling not only the written story within, but how it came to be.

How it was cut sewn stitched. How the words were so slowly, and carefully threaded together.

This book of cloth told me of it’s inner life. About the lives the ways of all the books like her.

Then gone.

…like the “Foretina” gone.

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I enter another world in mid-sentence.

Friends. Three women friends of which I am one. In dreams you live whole lives in moments. I entered a world with life long friends about me.

I yearned to tell the 'secret’ my great, and terrible secret. What for them was a lifetime was for me a moments fancy as I lay asleep in another world.

We sat, and laughed at the folly of the world. A world I was about to leave. Leave, and forget. This world, and my 'momentary’ friends will vanish.

Leaving not even dust.

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I awaken with the fragments of lives on the tip of my tongue. Fragments which as the moments passed melt away to nothing.